Questions and answers

Please send your queries to Dominic Coyle, Q&A, The Irish Times, D'Olier Street, Dublin 2, or e-mail to dcoyle@irish-times.ie. This column is a reader service and is not intended to replace professional advice. Due to the volume of mail, there may be a delay in answering queries. All suitable queries will be answered through the columns of the newspaper. No personal correspondence will be entered into.

Eircom

My wife and I have both lost our Eircom acceptance forms. They were probably thrown out amid the tons of brochures sent to us both in the last two years - how many trees has Eircom wasted as well as my money?

(1) How do we get new acceptance forms?

(2) Do we absolutely have to sell?

I can't believe our first dabble in shares has been such a disaster. Hope you can help.

Mr A.H., e-mail

I know many people, especially first-time equity investors like yourselves, have little goodwill towards Eircom but there are some things even Eircom could not change and the amount of paper issued in relation to the company is one of them.

As it happens, the most recent batches of documents you have received come from the two suitors for the company - Valentia, headed by Sir Anthony O'Reilly, and eIsland, led by Mr Denis O'Brien.

In any case, the purpose of the documents is to ensure that you, the shareholder, is properly informed by the company in which you hold shares, and any party wishing to take it over, of all the details of the deal as they affect you.

Eircom, no more than any other public company, can decide what to send out. It is prescribed by the stock exchange.

Turning to the more prosaic matter of getting new acceptance forms, you should contact the helpline number of whichever bidder it was who sent you the acceptance forms in the first place.

Given the timing of your query, it sounds like you are referring to the eIsland bid. Its helpline is 1800-715135.

However, that bid has since been trumped by Valentia. If you need forms from that consortium, the relevant number is 1850-303803.

As of now, you do not have to sell.

However, if one bidder gets control of 80 per cent of the company's shares, it can compulsorily acquire the balance. The general feeling is that the latest O'Reilly bid will reach that target, given the support it has from KPN and Telia, which own 35 per cent of Eircom, and the Employee Share Ownership Trust, which owns 14.9 per cent, along with the holding in excess of 10 per cent held by the consortium's adviser, Deutsche Bank, and the shares already held by Valentia consortium members or related firms.

Still, it is not a done deal yet and if you really want to hold on to your Eircom shares, you can for the moment.

I'm another one of those small Eircom investors who opted to keep my shares in the nominee account. My question is this: are my 721 Vodafone shares still in a nominee account and how would I go about selling them?

Ms K.C., Dublin

Once you have shares in a nominee account, any shares acquired as a result of dealings in that account tend to remain there, so your Vodafone shares will be in the same account that holds the Eircom shares you own for the rump of Eircom that remains.

As to selling them, you can do that through the stockbrokerage that holds the nominee account or you can transfer it to another broker.

Most do so through their existing broker but you need to keep a weather eye on changes.

There seems to be some concern about management and transaction charges on nominee accounts at the moment judging by my mailbag and it is an issue to which I hope to return in the next few weeks.

Rent-a-room

Regarding a recent article on the subject of rent-a-room relief and the notion of students opting for digs as the supply of accommodation dried up, can you tell me:

1) does the relief apply only to accommodation for students?

2) does a granny flat have to be attached to the property as mentioned?

I have a granny flat in the garden of our house but it is not physically attached to our home. Does this qualify?

Ms P.C., Dublin

Rent-a-room relief was introduced in the last Budget but covers the rental of a room or rooms in your home to any tenant. The main thing to note is that the amount of income from such rental cannot exceed £6,000 (€7,620) in a full tax year - and that includes any income associated with the rental, such as meals, laundry etc.

The article to which you are referring was just using students as a topical example, given that many people in this category are currently looking for accommodation and may be ideally suited to this relief.

On your second point, the Revenue says that granny flats, such as the one in your example, which are not physically attached to your home - or in officialspeak, your principal private residence - do not come within the definitions under the scheme.

I find this amazing and am not convinced that an appeal would not lead to this interpretation being overruled. After all, the terms of the relief permit self-contained flats where they are part of the main residence.

In the examples given by the Revenue, there is reference to basement flats and a converted garage attached to the main house. It seems to consider that any such dwelling needs to be physically attached to the main residence to qualify.

I would say it could quite cogently be argued that a self-contained flat or granny flat in the garden of your main residence could be considered to be attached to it, notwithstanding what I have been told by the Revenue.

The question is whether your residence is defined purely as the house or as the site on which it sits. It might be different if one was talking about an estate where there are several accommodations on the land, each effectively a private dwelling in its own right, but for most people we are talking about a small self-contained unit that is intimately part of the family residence.

I would suggest that you get a professional opinion on this if you are serious about considering availing of the relief.