Post-Tiger tenant feels hard times

Tenants are supposed to be protected from landlords, but, despite thousands of inspections every year, many people are still living in seriously substandard accommodation, writes JAMIE SMYTH, Social Affairs Correspondent

SEAMUS KENNEDY’S flat could never be called a home. The bedrooms can be so cold that they leave your breath visible in the winter air. The smell of damp permeates every room, and water damage stains the walls and ceilings in several places. A two-centimetre gap around a badly installed window frame causes a constant draught in one of the bedrooms, and electrical wiring is left dangerously exposed throughout the flat. The squalor is reminiscent of descriptions of life in a 19th-century slum. But this is 21st-century Dublin, and Kennedy lives in a €950-a-month flat in a housing estate in Clonsilla, in the west of the capital.

“I’ve had no heating or hot water since October, when the heating was turned off because of a defective boiler. The gas man said I was lucky I wasn’t poisoned,” says Kennedy, who is huddled next to a Superser heater with two of his teenage sons.

Almost 20,000 rented properties were inspected in 2009, and one in five of those did not meet minimum standards, including the structural condition of properties, fire safety, sanitary and heating facilities and ventilation. Landlords who fail to comply can face a fine of up to €5,000, plus €400 for each day of a continued breach.

But local authorities are reluctant to prosecute errant landlords. Dublin City Council is the only one to have taken legal action against landlords for breaching the minimum standards, according to the Department of the Environment. In 2008 it initiated eight legal actions, in 2009 it took three legal actions and in 2010 it initiated 19 prosecutions.

One of these prosecutions involved Kevin Galvin, a landlord who was found to have three adults and an 18-month-old baby living in a garden shed heated by an oven. Galvin was subsequently sacked from his job as a garda.

“It is time-consuming and difficult to take prosecutions, because you need to gather the legal proof and find out who owns a property,” says Colm Smyth, principal environmental- health officer at Dublin City Council. “But we are determined to apply the regulations. These are people’s homes, places where children grow up, and poor standards have an effect on health.”

There are big variations in local authorities’ inspection regimes. In 2009, for example, Cork County Council identified 505 substandard properties but sent landlords no improvement notices – letters outlining the repairs required to meet minimum standards; Limerick City Council identified 301 substandard properties and sent 301 improvement notices.

Five local authorities – Donegal, Leitrim, Limerick County Council, Waterford and Kildare – found no substandard dwellings despite undertaking more than 2,500 inspections. The national average is that one in five properties does not meet the standards.

Often those living in substandard flats and houses are the most vulnerable. Seamus Kennedy, who is unemployed, is one of 97,260 people whose rent is largely paid by the Government through the rent supplement system. The scheme, which is operated by HSE staff on behalf of the Department of Social Protection, cost taxpayers €516 million last year. It is used by some of the most vulnerable tenants: lone parents, the elderly, the unemployed and immigrants.

A 2007 STUDY by the Centre for Housing Research, a Government-funded body, showed that half of rent-supplement properties did not comply with legal minimum standards. In Dublin the figure rose to 78 per cent. The homeless charity Focus Ireland says the rent-supplement scheme is being abused by “unscrupulous landlords”, some of whom are raking in taxpayers’ money while providing poor standards of housing. “Many of the tenants we visit are not accepted anywhere else, and rent supplement becomes a trap for them,” says Ger Tuohy, a Focus Ireland project leader.

Kennedy – who was desperate to find accommodation two years ago – says his landlord promised to carry out repairs when he moved in. But this never happened, and when the central heating broke in October his landlord told him he didn’t have the money to repair it. “Christmas was really terrible because of the cold weather. I’ve only recently got out of hospital after an operation to remove an abscess. I haven’t been able to bathe my wound properly for four months, because there is no hot water,” says Kennedy, who has been told there is a six-year waiting list in Fingal for social housing.

He complained to Fingal County Council, which is responsible for inspecting private rented dwellings in Clonsilla. An environmental-health officer inspected the property in November and found 21 items requiring “immediate attention”, with works to be completed within 21 days. This inspection report was sent to the landlord. No repair work has begun yet on the flat.

Kennedy's landlord, Armstrong Birhiray, who is not registered with the Private Residential Tenancies Board, told The Irish Timeshe couldn't afford to do the repairs. He also alleged that Kennedy broke the terms of his contract by allowing his two sons to live in the property and by withholding his rent. Kennedy concedes he and Birhiray agreed that he would not move his children in to the property full-time, but says he withheld the rent because the property was substandard. The HSE itself has stopped its cheques to Birhiray.

The Irish Property Owners’ Association, which represents landlords, acknowledges that many landlords are struggling to make ends meet in the recession. “Landlords have seen a 30-50 per cent drop in rents in some areas, together with increases in taxation, higher registration charges [and] reductions in mortgage-interest relief, and many are now in negative equity. Having said all that, landlords must comply with the regulatory standards,” says Margaret McCormick of the association.

McCormick says lack of enforcement by local authorities is a problem. “We would like to see more inspections carried out by local authorities. Every landlord pays a registration fee to the Private Residential Tenancies Board to cover the cost of inspections, but only a small percentage of properties are inspected.”

The number of inspections by local authorities has increased steadily over the past six years, from 6,815 in 2005 to 19,801 in 2009. It now stands at just under 10 per cent of the 234,000 registered tenancies.

SHARON, A SINGLE mother who receives rent supplement, is living proof that not all rented properties in Kildare meet the standards. “I was basically living in an extension in someone’s back garden with my three-year-old son. I was living under extreme duress from the start,” she says. “The flat was meant to be furnished, but when I arrived there were no mattresses on the bed, so I had to stay with friends for a week. The heating was not connected for the first month. I had to leave the flat twice and live with friends because of flooding and no water – there was absolutely no insulation in the roof.”

Sharon, who does not want to give her full name because she is taking a case to the Private Residential Tenancies Board, finally managed to leave the flat two weeks ago.

Threshold, which is helping Sharon with her case, says it received 30 queries from tenants last year complaining about poor standards in Co Kildare, and it questions the council’s failure to identify any substandard dwellings in 2009.

Kildare Country Council says that it contracts HSE staff to conduct inspections on its behalf and that the 2009 inspections presumably didn’t find any substandard dwellings.

Minister of State for Housing Michael Finneran says the Government has worked hard to increase minimum standards. He says that inspections have tripled over the past four years and that prosecution mechanisms have been strengthened.

But Government promises to reform rent supplement have not been fulfilled, and housing charities say reforms are badly needed to protect vulnerable tenants such as Kennedy and Sharon.

“Our big concern is there is no pre-certification scheme for rented properties set up to ensure that landlords comply with the housing regulations that exist,” says Bob Jordan, executive director of Threshold. “We are getting more and more inquiries from rent-supplement recipients about substandard dwellings, probably because a growing number of landlords simply can’t afford to invest in their properties because of the recession.”

Setting standards

What are the minimum standards for flats?The Housing (Standards for Rented Houses) Regulations 2008 introduced higher standards to cover structural conditions, sanitary facilities, heating facilities, ventilation and a requirement for landlords to phase out bedsits by 2013.

Are they any good?The regulations were lauded by Government and tenants' groups as a major improvement, but they fall far short of the standards used when building new houses. This led the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland to criticise the standards as creating a "two-tier approach" to the provision of housing.

Who checks to see if properties meet the standards?Local authorities are responsible for inspecting rented dwellings to ensure landlords are complying with the regulations. They also have the power to prosecute landlords who fail to repair properties that don't meet the standards. There were 19,801 inspections in 2009; 4,306 properties of them did not meet standards.

What is the rent-supplement scheme?The 97,260 people relying on the Government's rent-supplement scheme are among the most vulnerable tenants. The scheme is supposed to offer short-term income support to subsidise the cost of rented property, but for many it has become a long-term option. It now costs the State €516 million a year.

What is wrong with the scheme?A monthly cap on State payments often forces recipients of the supplement to live in the poorest properties. Unlike the rival rental-accommodation scheme, which is aimed at those on rent supplement for 18 months or more, no pre-inspection of properties takes place before a tenant moves in. Many landlords on the scheme are not registered with the Private Residential Tenancies Board. There are also concerns that some landlords are not tax compliant.

What are the plans to reform the scheme?The Government has said it wants to reform the scheme, but it has not put forward a plan. Housing charities want the Government to pre-certify that a rental property meets minimum standards before paying the supplement. They also want the Government to negotiate rents directly with landlords and to ensure that landlords are tax compliant.