Wednesday 22nd March 2023
Lifting Of Eviction Ban – Measures Show ‘More Concrete Understanding Of Market Realities’ – IPAV
IPAV, the Institute of Professional Auctioneers & Valuers, this evening (Wednesday) welcomed the passing of the Government’s counter motion on the eviction ban saying it displays “more concrete understanding for the first time of market realities” and the measures, once implemented, would aid both tenants and private landlords.
Pat Davitt, IPAV’s Chief Executive said the ban should never have been introduced: “It simply builds up the number of evictions taking place around the same time and increases the desire of private landlords, already reeling from an avalanche of regulation of recent years, and the threat of further legislation to come, to leave the market.”
He said if the ban had been extended it “would likely have created a situation so deteriorated that the government could not have ended it at all. The decision was a brave one by government and is in the interest of both tenants and landlords.”
He said policy makers at Government level and particularly those serving them in the public sector “need to interrogate data on housing more closely, so that they are not vulnerable in their decision making process to mock rage and the denigration of private landlords.”
Mr Davitt said one of the measures in today’s motion – to amend the housing assistance payment (HAP) to guarantee payment to landlords where the tenant defaults on payment of their contribution to HAP – was something IPAV had campaigned for over several years.
“This was unbelievably unfair to landlords, it typified some of the craziest aspects of the mountain of new regulation introduced in recent years,” he said.
Where a HAP payment was in place and a tenant defaulted on their contribution to the rent, the Local Authority part of the rent payment immediately stopped.
“When this measure was introduced in recent years it marked the outsourcing of all State social responsibility in this area to private landlords with huge losses of rental income being incurred by them until such time as they could recover their properties by going through a process that was then also elongated by new government regulation.”
He also said a report from IPAV on vacant properties last week highlighted that grants currently on offer to bring such properties back into the market were ineffective when many potential buyers cannot draw down mortgages for such properties.
“In that regard we very much welcome the measures in today’s Government motion,” he said.
But, he said, all of today’s measures, with promises yet to materialise later in the year, were important. IPAV hopes that Government will discuss these issues with stakeholders, including IPAV and others working in the market, to get much needed properties back into use and encourage private landlords to continue to provide rental properties.
“There is a more comprehensive feeling to today’s measures, something that has been badly needed,” he concluded.
Ends