Rush to raise Mayo rents before new rental rules come into force

The Minister for Housing James Browne is expected to introduce emergency legislation today (Tuesday) to extend Rent Pressure Zones (RPZs) to all areas of the country until February 2026.

This move would enable the Minister to bring in the change before new rent controls come in from the start of March next year.

Currently in Mayo, only Castlebar and Westport LEAs are designated rent pressure zones. It was just last month that Castlebar was designated a rent pressure zone.

This means that rents can’t be increased by more than general inflation, as recorded by the Harmonised Index of the Consumer Price (HICP), or by 2 percent, if inflation is higher.

For the rest of Mayo, which is presently outside the rent pressure zones, you have to give 90 day notice of a rent increase up to market value, and you can only do it every two years.

New-build apartments commenced after March next year would see no official annual cap on rent increases, under the proposed rules. The rate of increase allowed would be linked to the consumer price index, which is often above 2 percent.

Another proposed change would see landlords with four or more rental properties banned from ending a tenancy through a no fault eviction. Landlords with three or fewer properties would only be able to enforce a no fault eviction if they suffer financial hardship or their personal or family circumstances change.

Rent increases

Uncertainty over when it is coming in is going to make landlords raise the rent prices while they still can, according to Máire Heffron of Heffron Property Management in Ballina.

“If the landlord has an opportunity now to hike it up, they probably will, out of fear that they don't know when this thing is going to come in,” said Ms Heffron.

The balance between tenants and landlords rights could be better, she says.

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“I don't think anything they do is encouraging landlords into the market. I just don't see where the encouragement is for landlords. It's a very precarious situation here, where you just don't know when it's coming in is basically the problem. I would find that a lot of landlords are getting quite annoyed at the way that the legislation and the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) seem to work very much in favour of the tenant. And yet again, they're attacking landlords' rights to their own properties.

Backdrop

“The backdrop to all of this is that house prices have never been higher, along with stronger tenant rights leading to a lot of landlords leaving the market.

“I would find a lot of my properties now that, once they become vacant, they are going up on the market, and landlords are not staying in the market.”

As reported in The Mayo News last week, the chances of getting a rental property online are slim to nil.

Unfortunately, it's the same story in Ballina: “I don't even have to advertise properties any more. I have a waiting list, and I have enough people on that that I very rarely would have to advertise a property, because I just have too many.”

The knock-on effect of landlords leaving the market is not only reducing the number of rental properties, it is also forcing existing renters back onto the market.

“I have people phoning me every day. I could get three or four inquiries, new ones every day from people who, a lot of them, to be honest, are ones who have been served notice because their landlord is selling, that's the primary reason most of them are needing to find accommodation.”

The Ballina-based estate agent knows first-hand the delays that can be involved when dealing with the RTB and says, the RTB is already backed up with dealing with cases like over holding and rent arrears and everything.

“How are they going to police this? Now, if the whole country is under an RPZ, they can hardly cope with the workload that they have already, so they're the only organisation that is going to be dealing with that.”