Council tenant clocked up over €5k in rent arrears

A Cavan county councillor has complained and demanded that the council, in future, “address the issue of rent arrears after three incidents of non-payment” to prevent tenants accumulating huge debts.

In some cases, arrears have run into several thousands of euro, and it’s claimed that the tenants did not receive any correspondence flagging the situation.

Sinn Fein’s Paddy McDonald stated: “Social housing is, by definition, housing given to lower income families. Therefore allowing arrears of this size to accumulate without proper communication with the tenant is reckless. It leads to sizeable bills that are impossible for tenants to clear and the council is left with large deficits of money owed to them, which could be put to good use.”

He gave two examples: “There are many more.”

Cllr McDonald went on to state that no private landlord or utility company would allow bills of this size to accumulate “without making efforts to resolve the issue”, and questioned why the council would.

“Once someone misses payment or makes the incorrect payment more that three times, they should be contacted to see what the issue is and to be certain that they are aware of a change to the amount they owe per week.

“If someone is notified their rent is increasing in writing, and they have a right of appeal, then the increase should not take effect until that process is complete. When tenants lodge an appeal, they should be issued with confirmation of receipt of that appeal and then, again, notified of the outcome of that appeal.”

Cllr McDonald said it was “imperative” that the system is changed “urgently”, noting that other councils had adopted online pay portals through which tenants can log in with an account and pin number to make a payment or check their balance. “If Cavan County Council housing department introduced this system, it would allow for more transparency and a fairer operating system for a lot of people,” he argued.

“I would also ask that the council make every effort to assist the people who have found themselves in this situation.

“I think, where it is evident that they were paying their rent over a period of time at the rate their rent was previously set at, it should be taken into consideration that they were not aware they should have been paying the increased amount and the council should make allowances for that and enter into fair and transparent discussions with these people to resolve the situation going forward,” added Cllr McDonald.

Overpayments

There was cross-party support for the motion, at least partial support among the majority. Fine Gael’s Madeleine Argue asked the council about situations involving “overpayment”. She said a council tenant overpaid by €500 but claimed they were unable to get the monies refunded.

Fianna Fáil’s Patricia Walsh also supported the motion, highlighting how the council keeps payments four weeks in advance.

While Independent Shane P O’Reilly supported the crux of the motion, he warned that trying to “fix something that’s not broken” by introducing additional measures could have an unexpected knock-on effect to other local services such as the Post Office.

There was praise too for the work done by council staff in the Housing Department in terms of dealing with tenants and payments, as well as the empathy shown, from Cllr O’Reilly and fellow Independent councillor, Brendan Fay.

Cathaoirleach Clifford Kelly said he was of the opinion that a “letter” was sent to tenants in arrears and, with regard to forms issued in respect of annual rent reviews, he wondered “how much blame is on people not returning their forms”?

Director of Services for Housing, Eoin Doyle, responded to the motion on behalf of the executive.

He said that the council is “looking to tighten up” the processes around collecting payments.