UP TO 40 children in 20 families are being forced into homelessness every month by banks and financial institutions through evictions from buy-to-let homes.
Here at Focus Ireland, we have called on the Government to change the law to stop banks and other financial institutions from being able to repossess buy-to-let homes and evict the tenant.
Our politicians have been discussing how to increase the protection for tenants in the Planning and Development (Housing) and Residential Tenancies Bill 2016. The Government’s ‘Tyrrelstown Amendment’ initially proposes to ensure that landlords with 20 or more properties cannot evict their tenants in one go. However, most of the evictions from buy-to-let tenancies are by landlords with one or two properties.
The Senate recently spent considerable time debating whether the Tyrrelstown Amendment should cover landlords with 20, 10 or five properties. Even at its most ‘inclusive’, this amendment will exclude 95 per cent of Irish landlords who own between one and five units. Unless the Government actually faces up to where the problem really lies, it cannot claim to be doing everything possible to tackle homelessness.
While the Government is showing a high level of commitment to tackling the homeless crisis, it is at times spending too much time and political energy on issues which do not tackle the actual problems people are facing.
The same thing happened with proposals two years ago to link rents to the CPI (Consumer Price Index). After a year of political infighting, a ‘compromise’ was reached with much fanfare, limiting rent increases to every two years. The problem was that the compromise did not address the real issue and had little impact on slowing down rent increases.
We have pushed the Government to start looking for ‘compromises’ – but it is clear that what they have come up with won’t work. Proposed Government ‘compromises’ will only protect tenants of large landlords but what we have clearly seen is that it’s the tenants of smaller landlords who are most at risk of being evicted if a home is repossessed.
According to the Central Bank, there are over 15,000 buy-to-let landlords who are in arrears by over two years. Banks and financial institutions are repossessing these homes and evicting the tenants at a rate of 100 a month. We are calling on the Government to outlaw this practice and ensure that where banks repossess such properties, they sell them on with the tenant still in place. This should apply whether the landlord has one property or 100.
Focus Ireland is also critical of a further loophole in the Government’s proposed ‘Tyrrelstown Amendment’ which would allow landlords to evict tenants collectively where they could prove that this would add at least 20 per cent to the sale price.
We would ask the minister to stand back and look at this proposal again. How can it be right to pass a law to protect the homes of tenants, but allow landlords to set it aside simply on the basis that they can prove they can make a lot of money if they do?
This amendment has had little attention so far and we believe that if it was more widely known there would be a very negative public reaction to the Government introducing a ‘threshold’ above which it becomes acceptable to undertake multiple evictions once it is profitable. This seems bizarre, to say the least.
Focus Ireland has been running a campaign in recent weeks calling for action to stop families renting from ‘buy-to-let’ landlords being evicted if the landlord is forced to sell the property. An incredible 40,000 e-mails were sent to TDs and senators in the first two weeks of the campaign.
It is vital we always remember that behind every one of these evictions, we are talking about men, women and children who are being forced out of their home – through no fault of their own – and becoming homeless. This is wrong and totally unacceptable.
While much good work is being done to prevent people from becoming homeless, the growing number of buy-to-let homes being either repossessed or sold is causing a constant rise in the numbers being forced into homelessness.
Mike Allen is Director of Advocacy at Focus Ireland. To donate, visit www.focusireland.ie or phone 1850 204 205.
