The Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCSI) has called for the setting up of a dedicated adjudication body – a so-called rental court – to deal with serious disputes between tenants and landlords.
The representative group said it believes such a body was needed within the Rental Tenancies Board (RTB) to deal with issues such as tenants refusing to leave a property after the lease has expired – often referred to as overholding – the non-payment of rent and landlords who unlawfully hold on to deposits.
The SCSI said the current mediation system for handling rental disputes run by the RTB was “overly complex, takes far too long and involves an inefficient use of resources”. It said that a rental court should be set up so that it could hear and rule on cases within a three-month time frame.
SCSI research indicates two of the main reasons small landlords are continuing to exit the market in increasing numbers are complex rental regulations and the high risks involved in renting a property. However, sector followers also say that heightened interest rates, rent increase caps and tax concerns have fuelled this phenomenon in recent years.
“The tenant-landlord relationship should be a co-operative one, involving willing partners,” said Kevin Hollingsworth, president of the SCSI. “Too often in Ireland, the relationship becomes adversarial in nature. A lot of this is down to the chronic lack of supply but when problems do arise, tenants and landlords should have confidence in the dispute resolution process. That is not happening with the current dysfunctional system.”
He said that estate agents who are members of the SCSI were “reporting mounting concerns with regard to tenants overholding of properties after the expiry of a tenancy as well as with rent arrears and the unlawful withholding of deposits by landlords”.
In its pre-budget submission, the SCSI has proposed a thorough revision of the Residential Tenancies Act with the aim of “simplifying the regulations governing tenant-landlord relations and creating a clearer and more user-friendly framework”.
There were 1,009 properties to rent in Dublin on Sunday, according to Daft.ie, the property website.
In the 2000s and 2010s, Dublin typically had about 3,500 homes available to rent at any particular point in time, according to Daft. At a low point last year, there were only 800 homes on the market for rent.
The decline in small landlords has been echoed in recent times by a slump in apartment building by players in the professional private rental sector that had developed in the wake of the property crash. The decline has been attributed to a surge in interest rates, rental caps, planning issues and a series of policy changes affecting the sector, according to industry observers.
- Sign up for Business push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Join The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Our Inside Business podcast is published weekly – Find the latest episode here
