Housing bill will create €¼bn fund
Issued : Sunday 29 March, 2009
Statement by Ciarán Lynch TD
I will be publishing this week a Bill to that will require payment of deposits to he Private Residential Tenancies Board in respect of registered tenancies.
The Bill it requires tenancy deposits to be paid over by a landlord to the Private Residential Tenancies Board rather than being held by the landlord personally. This will reduce the number of disputes arising where a deposit is not returned after the end of a tenancy and will facilitate the resolution of those disputes.
I would estimate that the deposit for each agreement would be in the region of €1,000 for each of the approximate 250,000 tenancies, creating a fund that will be worth €¼bn, held in a national treasury account.
That money will be generated by and held in trust, and while the scheme would be self-financing, any surplus or interest generated would be made available to invest in projects that will monitor and improve standards in the private rented sector.
In addition the Bill also seeks to reduce the number of cases where supplementary welfare allowance is used to facilitate rent payments in respect of unregistered tenancies.
Under the Bill, where a landlord requires a tenant to pay a deposit, the deposit shall be paid by the landlord to the Board at the time of application for registration of the tenancy. The deposit shall be held by the Board until the tenancy ends.
Where a landlord and a tenant jointly apply for the repayment of a deposit the Board must promptly repay the deposit in the manner specified in the application.
None of the deposit shall be repaid to the tenant if the they are in arrears of rent or has d caused a deterioration in the condition of the dwelling and the rent outstanding or the cost of restoring the dwelling is greater than the deposit;
This Bill will address the current situation where there is absolutely no legislation to regulate how deposits are held on account and managed or maintained.
