New rent scheme for council tenants

Tipperary Co Council is this week writing to all of its tenants with regard to a new rent scheme.

Tipperary Co Council has over the last couple of months been working on merging the current nine separate Differential Rent Schemes in the county into one all-county Differential Rent Scheme. The overall objective of this process is to ensure that there is equity across the county for all tenants given that all tenants are now availing of the same standard of housing services. Currently, there are varying rates of minimum and maximum rent, depending on what part of the county you live in. The scheme will come into effect from July 2nd 2018.

Approximately 8,000 rent forms were issued by the local authority to all tenants who occupy either a local authority dwelling or avail of rent supports from the local authority thorough the Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS), and/or the Housing Assistance Payment Scheme (HAP). 85% of the forms were returned and the new rent scheme has been calculated for each of these tenancies based on their household income. The new rent calculations will be sent out this week to all tenants.

15% of forms were not returned, despite reminders, and these tenants will be subject to a maximum rent until such time as they provide their up to date details. Any tenant with queries or concerns is advised to contact the named person on their rent notification document.

Whilst there will be changes to rent costs for approximately 85% of tenants, the council has sought to ensure that there will be minimal significant impact on the more vulnerable tenants. The key changes include the minimum rent being increased to €20 per week throughout the entire county. This will affect approximately 8% of those tenants currently on the minimum rent.

The maximum rent will be increased to €120/€1320/€140 (1,2,3,4-bed respectively) and again will affect a small number of tenants in the county (approx 3%).

As the rental scheme in Tipperary is based on household income, a tenant in a four-bedroom house needs to earn in excess of €800 to be subject to the maximum rent level. This compares very favourably with the private market where the rent is €780 at present. The rent cost of a local authority-supported social housing in Tipperary also compares very favourably with adjoining counties in relation to both the minimum and maximum rent levels. The new scheme is considered to be a fair and equitable approach to delivering an income based rent scheme across the entire county.