Tipperary County Council rent arrears figures exceed €3 million

Rent arrears at Tipperary County Council have exceeded €3million.

This is according to an FOI request made by Nenagh councillor Seamus Morris. The results show that in June, the figures stood at €3,128,960.

There was a slight dip in July of €113,416, bringing the number to €3,015,544.

Cllr Morris said the Freedom of Information Act was the only way he was able to obtain the information.

“I am disappointed that I had to do an FOI to get this information, it shows the complete lack of respect or trust in elected representatives, but more importantly, it shows that the council are covering something up in terms of the rent review that they have not got control of,” said Cllr Morris.

Cllr Morris first raised this issue at the March sitting of the Nenagh Municipal District Council.

He was concerned about tenants being hit with arrears bills in the thousands of euros.

This remains a concern for Cllr Morris this week.

“They are hitting people with massive rent arrears because they started a rent review themselves without having the staff to follow it through, and now tenants are being hit with rent arrears of up to €4,000 that they don't owe, and if people look for help they are being sent to MABS which is an absolute abuse of the MABS system,” said Cllr Morris.

In June of this year, the Tipperary Star reported 3,531 people were in arrears.

Up to March 2022, €2,425,606 was owed to the council. Tipperary County Council said at that time that the figures were ‘artificially inflated’ by an ongoing rent review.

However, the figures obtained this week show that the numbers continued to rise in April, May and June.

In July, they dipped but remained in excess of three million euros.
The documents indicate that all of this year’s figures are covered by that rent review.

We requested a comment from Tipperary County Council. However, none was available at time of printing.

Source: Results of FOI. Dark blue line respresents the rent arrears data. The light blue line represents the trend

NOTICES TO QUIT
Cllr Morris also requested the number of Notices to Quit received by HAP and RAS tenants. Tipperary County Council said 95 NTQs were issued up to August 24.

This was an increase of 60 on 2021 and 64 on 2020 figures.

“On the NTQs is apparent with an increase of over 400% of landlords leaving the system in the Nenagh MD we are in a crisis situation and now need to look at all options including modular housing and affordable housing,” said Cllr Morris.

CONSTITUENCY OFFICES
The issue of rent arrears is one that's becoming more common for TDs.

Sinn Féin TD Martin Browne said he believes the rent arrears are currently artificially inflated by the ongoing rent review.

He said the end-of-year figures may shed more light on the situation.

However, he said he would like to see the council being more ‘more proactive’ with tenants so that they don't end up in massive amounts of debt.

Mr Browne said tenants may not know how their rent is calculated asks the council to explain the system to tenants.

“We would ask the council to inform tenants of how rent is calculated and for tenants to report income increases as soon as possible.

“But we would ask the council to engage with the tenants before someone comes in”, said Mr Browne.
He also said that if there are people in debt and do not want to engage with the council, they can contact his office, and he will assist them.

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Fianna Fáil TD Jackie Cahill said his office can assist tenants in debt.

He said that where there is a genuine reason a tenant has found themselves in rent arrears, they may be eligible for a supplementary welfare payment.

Otherwise, he said they can help the tenant work with the council on a payment plan.

Mr Cahill said his office had seen more issues recently around rent, and they deal with each situation on a case-by-case basis.

"What I would say is don't ignore the issue and deal with it as soon as possible," said Mr Cahill.