THIS week the government approved legislation to provide for a temporary stay on evictions this winter.
Colloquially known as the ‘eviction ban’, it means that those currently in rented accommodation will not have to comply with ‘notice to quit’ letters until at least April 1st.
This is to avoid anyone being turfed out on the street during the winter, one assumes. Because anyone unlucky enough to have to leave rented accommodation in the current horrific crisis, has little or no chance of finding an alternative home – unless they are at the very upper end of the rental market.
Of course if you refuse to pay your rent, are engaging in anti-social behaviour, or criminal activity or any kind, or are not using the property for the purposes for which you rented it, (ie running a business from a private home) then all bets are off.
The move came as no surprise to the market as, with all big decisions made by the current coalition, there was ample leaking of the intention to change the law in recent weeks.
The testing of the water with these leaks resulted in a fairly mixed reaction to the plans.
And nothing much changed when the plans were finalised on Tuesday.
Lots of nervous tenants welcomed the albeit short-lived stability the law will give, and the associations representing landlords were not so impressed.
But the latter made some good observations, in fairness.
Before the finer details were unveiled, the Irish Property Owners’ Association said they could see little value in the legislation at all, given that anyone sending out a notice to quit already has to give a tenant who is renting for more than six months a minimum of five months’ notice. From November 1st, that means the tenant would not have to leave until the start of April – so the exact same time period as the legislation covers.
Although the government did state that any notice of termination served during the winter ‘emergency period’ in respect of tenancies of less than six months’ duration cannot specify a termination date that falls earlier than next June 18th. This is a good advance on the previous position, which stated that a landlord with a tenant in accommodation for less than six months need only give them 90 days’ notice to quit.
But, at the end of the day, putting a short stay on evictions will have little effect on solving the housing crisis – as so many other critics of the plan have noted.
It might save a few families from being added to the already massive list of people seeking rental accommodation in Ireland, but it won’t do a whole lot to reduce that list.
As has been said over and over again, the issue is with supply of actual homes, and eviction bans won’t build any more houses.
Dr Rory Hearne of Maynooth University has become one of the more reasonable voices in the housing debate and has offered some basic suggestions – so simple, they often seem too good to be true.
Writing earlier this month, after the Budget that seemed to genuinely disappoint him in its lack of offering any housing crisis solutions, he said we needed a three-year moratorium on evictions. Yes, three years – not three, or five, months.
Landlords could still sell their properties, but they would have to keep their tenants too – a situation common in so many European countries.
Landlords could still leave the market, but they wouldn’t be adding to the demand for rental homes by doing so, he noted.
For a long time he has been posing a very obvious question: Why isn’t the State itself building more homes, either by funding not-for-profit housing companies, or building them directly themselves?
If it worked in the past, before we handed the task over to the private sector, one would indeed be inclined to ask, then why not again?
Whatever the solution, one thing is for sure: this week’s development with the ‘eviction ban’ is just putting a sticking plaster on what has become an ever-growing and increasingly septic sore.
