Thursday, 26 August 2010

DUBLIN City Council tenants owe a staggering e19.5 million in rent arrears according to figures obtained last week by Southside People.
The amount of unpaid rent arrears outstanding to the council increased from e13.9 million in 2008, a massive 40 per cent increase.
The statistics were presented by council officials to members of the finance strategic policy committee recently and have sparked calls for the council to review its system of managing rent collection.
Council management also revealed that the shortfall between the amount of rent the local authority charges and the amount paid by tenants increased dramatically by over 100 per cent from e2.6 million in 2008 to e5.4 million last year. The figures also show that more than a quarter, or 6,300 of the council's 25,000 social housing tenants, have rent arrears in excess of three months.
The dramatic increase in arrears has prompted one Southside councillor to call on the local authority to review its management of rental collection and implement an early warning system that would alert staff to tenants' lack of ability to pay.
Cllr Mannix Flynn (Ind) said the increase in rent arrears indicates that the council does not have an efficient system of rent collection from tenants in place.
?The fact that the council is owed almost e20 million in rent arrears was confirmed to us a few weeks back,? he said.
?Some of these arrears would be from tenants who owe in excess of e5,000. I believe this rent has to be collected.
?I accept that there are people there who have problems in meeting their rent payments. But when you have a situation where you don't have a mechanism to collect that kind of rent, then it is the council and not the tenants that have the bigger problem.
?Dublin City Council has no steadfast mechanism of assuring itself that the tenants it has are paying for themselves. There needs to be an early warning system in place.
?I am not saying that we need evictions but we need a much more professionally managed system of rent collection.
?This is regarded as a situation that is not that serious. But now it is becoming very serious because we have an enormous budget deficit and we will have enormous cuts coming up.?
Aideen Hayden, chairperson of housing charity Threshold, said the proportion of tenants in local authority housing that had sought advice from the organisation because they were finding it difficult to pay their rent had increased ?very significantly? in recent months.
?The local authority doesn't just have a housing function in providing a roof over someone's head, it also has a duty to make sure that as far as possible the housing authority is providing them with support as well,? she said.
?A proportion of social housing tenants have needs for what we call tenancy sustainment. That is a dedicated service to assist them in both managing their tenancies and being able to access the other public services that they need. There is a need for more active management at council level.?
A spokesman for Dublin City Council said it currently employs 20 full-time rent arrears supervisors.
He said the council issues a series of letters to tenants before giving them advance warning of any legal action they intended to initiate and had assigned a full-time legal team to its rents section.
?The team is successfully pursuing non-payment of rent in the District Court,? the spokesman said.
?It has re-assigned staff to supervise and monitor arrears and to conduct house calls and has developed and strengthened links with the Department of Social Protection.?
In addition, the spokesman said the council will not carry out routine maintenance on dwellings with rent arrears of more than six weeks.