Landlord non-registration & Oireachtas Housing Committee update
20/09/23
On Tuesday, October 10th (which was budget day as it happens), I attended the Oireachtas Committee on Housing, along with representatives of the CSO and RTB, to the discuss what we know about the PRS, and whether it is growing or shrinking. I’ve already written about this issue on these pages before, so below I give a very brief summary of what we’ve learnt since. I also include some reflections on the role of the RTB. One important thing to note is that when I first wrote about this, I compared the Census 2022 figures with the RTB’s 2021 figures. I subsequently got the RTB’s 2022 figures, which show that the difference between the two data sets is now around 84,000 - a rather large figure.
Here’s a brief summary of my statement to the Committee (read the full statement here):
· The CSO reports that there are 330,000 households in the PRS, whereas the 2022 data shows there are 246,453 tenancies registered with the RTB. This discrepancy is likely the result of a combination of the following: non-registration of some tenancies; some AHB tenants mis-categorising themselves as PRS tenants when completing the Census; licensee tenancies are captured by the Census but not by the RTB register of tenancies.
· The level of non-registration is not known. However, in collaboration with Threshold, we took a sample of 146 tenancies associated with clients who contacted Threshold in early September 2023. Of these, 52% were not registered. This suggests that non-registration is a significant concern. The decline in the number of registered tenancies began in 2016, thus coinciding with increased regulation of the sector, including rent regulation. A big thank you to all the Threshold team who helped with this, it got quite a bit of coverage in the media (see here and here).
So what did we learn at the Oireachtas Committee? A brief summary of the key points:
The CSO will lead a ‘matching exercise’ to determine what the issue is, working with the RTB, and will probably report back within about 6 months.
Based on their preliminary analysis, they don’t think the AHB issue mentioned above is likely to be a big part of the story.
Senator John Cummins (FG) raised an important point; people who rent their home form a family member are not required to register and therefore would be captured by the Census but not by the RTB. No one knows how many tenancies this could account for.
Of course, at the very time we were discussing these issues in the Oireachtas Committee, the new tax breaks for landlords were being announced. The next day, I wrote this opinion piece for the Irish Examiner, pointing out that the narrative that the PRS is shrinking and landlords are fleeing lacks robust evidence, and describing the tax break as a ‘shot in the dark’.
What most interested me at the Committee meeting, however, was what the RTB had to say. I should first point out that one of the reasons we are having this whole debate, is because the RTB have greatly improved their register of tenancies, such that it is now much more accurate. In general, the RTB have done huge work over recent years to improve the quality of the data they collect and publish, and we now have a much better understanding of things like the number of tenancies registered, the number of notices of termination issued, and the differences between new and existing tenancies (see recent research by the ESRI using RTB data on this last point).
At the Committee meeting, Niall Byrne, RTB Director, discussed at length the role of the RTB as regulator. He effectively said that size of the PRS meant that it is now an ‘essential service’ and that there is a very strong case that it be ‘regulated in the public interest’ (it was difficult not to infer from this that the sector is currently not regulated in the public in the interest). This would require turning the RTB in to an active regulator with the power to effectively ensure things like compliance. He was explicit in stating that there are ‘bad actors’ in the system, and there are some landlords who are only in the PRS to ‘exploit vulnerable tenants’. These were very strong words from the Director, and appear to indicate huge frustration with the fact that the RTB is essentially unable to effectively deal with many of the problems in the sector because it has not been given the appropriate powers and remit. Whether anything will come of it, is another matter.
Events & News
Threshold have released this ‘Know your rights’ quiz through - it’s a great idea (I’m ashamed to say I only got 6 out of 8!) CATU have a job vacancy as a regional organiser in Munster, and the Housing Agency are recruiting for a number of roles, including communications manager. Next Tuesday, Adam Standring (De Montfort University) will present a Geary Institute seminar on "From moral critique to moral politics: Bridging everyday struggles and structural transformations in the housing crises" (1pm, UCD’s Geary Seminar Room B003/4)
What I’m reading
I have a chapter on Ireland in a new edited volume which has just been published, Private Renting in the Advanced Economies. Thanks to the Editor Peter Kemp for the invitation to be part of this book. Clíodhna Bairéad and Michelle Norris have a new paper on strategies to prevent single person homelessness. A new edited on volume on the Sociology of home has just been published. A very useful new report on housing affordability published by the Parliamentary Budget Office. And in more good news for renters, new research suggests that rental housing is literately killing you.