Landlords’ right to evict tenants before selling houses will continue to cause homelessness
The housing charity Threshold has welcomed as significant the measures announced by the Minister for Housing tonight to deal with Ireland’s dysfunctional rental market.
“We welcome the greater security of tenure associated with these measures and the extension of the RPZs out to the end of 2021”, according to the Chairperson of Threshold Dr Aideen Hayden. “However we remain concerned that landlords will continue to be allowed to terminate tenancies in advance of selling houses, and we would ask Government to restrict this.
“Among the tenants we assist, the main reason their tenancies are ended is because the landlord says he or she wants to sell the house. While we welcome that any stated intention of the landlord to sell is to be followed up on and verified, this still means many tenants face eviction due to no fault of their own. It would also be of great value to sitting tenants if local authorities were given resources to buy properties with sitting HAP tenants, thus ensuring they could remain in situ during and after a sale.”
Dr Hayden said that the effectiveness of these measures would only be seen when the detail emerges. However she welcomed the changing of the criteria for RPZ designation to capture more areas experiencing high rent inflation; the closing down of avenues that allowed some landlords to escape rent controls; and the new notice to quit periods.
