The Ryan Review

WHENEVER I feature questions on this page or comment here about rogue landlords — the ones who give everyone else a bad name — I get angry emails from the ones who are compliant, or who have had awful tenants to deal with themselves and terrible stories to tell. So, clearly there are bad apples on both sides.

That said, the news that Minister Eoghan Murphy is to introduce legislation which makes it a statutory offence to rip-off tenants with rent increases outside of the Rent Pressure Zone limits, is welcome.

Not because the majority of landlords are rogue at all, but because it should have been done at the time rent controls were brought in. Expecting a body to self-regulate in a profit-hungry market is naïve at best. It didn’t work with banks, it doesn’t work in many businesses, and sadly, laws that carry hefty fines or even prison sentences can often be the only deterrent to bad practice.

The Rent Tenancies Board is supposed to police all this stuff but it is (a) dreadfully slow, under-resourced and cumbersome and (b) relies on tenants already desperate for accommodation and willing to put up with sub-standard and illegal contracts, to complain. Crucially, the new law will allow the RTB to investigate property owners where a direct complaint has not been made by a tenant, who may be frightened to so do. Opposition naturally, will come from landlord organisations, but I wonder what resistance Mr Murphy might get from his political colleagues — many of whom are, of course, themselves landlords. But they’re the good kind, right?