Dublin City Council flats may go on sale next year

Dublin city management will tonight ask councillors to ratify a scheme that will allow council tenants to buy their flats from the beginning of next year.

Until now only tenants of council houses could buy their homes. The Government repealed this ruling in December, paving the way for local authorities to begin selling flats.

The Government sanction followed a two-year lobbying campaign from Dublin City Council, which is the State's largest landlord with a total housing stock of more than 26,500 homes, some 15,000 of which are flats. The sale of the flats could earn the Exchequer up to €3 billion with an estimated 33 per cent take-up.

A tenant purchase scheme for flats was originally introduced in 1988 but was withdrawn just five years later after it was found to be unworkable. One of the biggest barriers to the sale of flats was the difficulty in managing communal and open spaces.

The council now believes it has found a solution. In each complex a community association would be formed. The council would remain the managing agents for a complex until more than 50 per cent of the units were sold, then the association would decide whether to retain the council's services or outsource a third party.

In either case, residents would pay the agents an annual service charge for the maintenance of common areas. Where a resident chooses not to buy their flat they remain tenants of the council and the council assumes their portion of the service charge.

In his report to the council, assistant city manager Brendan Kenny says the council is anxious to achieve a good social mix in its flat complex and does not want tenants to feel compelled to buy.

However, he said the council wanted to give as many tenants as possible the opportunity to buy and is recommending that a once-off special purchase price be introduced for the first 12 months of the scheme, after which market values would apply.

Tenants would also be entitled to a discount for every year they had held tenancy of their flat, up to a maximum of 30 per cent. However, there would be a "claw back" if residents attempted to resell the flats at an early date.