A Sinn Fein bill aims to crack down on short-term letting providers and issue on-the-spot fines.
The legislation would re- quire estate agents and online hosting platforms to check if property owners have the correct planning documents before advertising their properties on their websites.
If not, the laws would mean the platforms would be fined the amount they would earn per day from the property being rented out from their website.
It comes following an Irish Independent report that councils across the country are not clamping down on properties being let out for more than 90 days a year – longer leases that require planning permission.
The majority of counties have many more advertisements on Airbnb than they do on Daft.ie.
As the housing crisis deepens, the number of properties available to rent long-term has decreased, while lucrative short-term lets have soared in popularity.
Data shows councils in 12 counties did not issue any warning letters last year and 11 did not launch any investigations into properties that may have been rented out for longer than 90 days.
“We need to crack down on the illegal short-term letting of rental homes to ensure these homes are returned to the rental system,” Sinn Féin housing spokesperson said.
“The current enforcement regime rests with the local authorities, but, unfortunately, it is very slow and many local authorities are not adequately resourced by government to enforce the regulations.
“Stricter enforcement is required, and this bill does what many of us were calling for when the regulations were first introduced.”
Mr Ó Broin said the bill, which will be launched next week, would also give the housing minister powers to impose penalties.
“The bill also allows the minister to give local authorities the power to issue spot fines to short-term lettings providers and estate agents that advertise non-compliant properties,” he said, adding that there is an “ever-dwindling” supply of affordable homes across the State.
The fact that SF are making noise about it suggests to me that it’s probably not a real problem. Does anybody know if Airbnb has a material impact?
Honestly Airbnb is often not worth the hassle for single room. Hotels and B&B are often the same price and better located. However Airbnb is brilliant for holiday homes for short or weekly bookings for groups.
Targeting air bnb will do nothing to rent prices. It will just remove more small landlords from the market.
Because Airbnb have its base of EU operations in Ireland and employs 400 people, I feel like the government would never be too harsh on them, regardless of how damaging they are (or aren’t)
ETA: I honestly thought Airbnb was a city problem, but I’ve looked at my small town and there are so many full houses and apartments up for rent, I’m shocked by the number of them. Every day on my local facebook group there’s people asking to be informed about any places coming up for rent because there’s so much competition for the few shitty homes that come up. Mind instantly made up, down with Airbnb
Wasn’t this promised years ago by the government?
I use ABB once a year when doing Dublin City Marathon. Always go for a “granny flat” style place.
They’re perfect as usually in quiet estates, and hotels or b+bs can’t provide breakfast at the time needed, plus we have to eat our own prepared breakfast anyway!
Any place we’ve got has always been nice, but not somewhere I’d want to call home, even sort term.
Anecdotally, but I have family members who run an airbnb.
They used to rent their old house out, but once airbnb became a thing, it’s waaaaay more profitable to do that instead. They, like most people, wouldnt willingly cut their income. But if the government banned air bnbs, they’d go back to renting it out.
It’s a disgrace to allow airbnb to operate when we’re in the middle of a housing crisis.
If a person owns the property is it not their choice what they want to do with it.
Isn’t this the purpose of private property?
Great news. Perfectly good house in the country side near my parents that could be sold or rented out seeing as the people who own it have absolutely no need. No, they want to rent it on airbnb to make even more money for themselves. Fuck em
You got to give credit to SF for knowing what people want and not what they need. According to [insideairbnb.com](https://insideairbnb.com) there is a mere 386 entire properties regularly rented in the county of Dublin on [airbnb.com](https://airbnb.com).
This bill will achieve fuck all in reality, but most importantly will win SF brownie points.
Cracking down on Airbnb like that rightly pushes it back to what it was intended for, renting out a spare room to generate a bit of extra cash and provide cheaper accommodation than a hotel
This makes it sound like SF are taking holiday cottages to a secluded location for old-school interrogation. Where are the kneecaps on chalets, exactly?
They need a system where you need to get a license to rent out a property, long or short term, and ban any ads that don’t have a licence number included, and fine companies who advertise without confirming the owner has an up to date licence.
While I’m not a fan of airbnb, I don’t feel like political interference such as this will fix things.
We should be asking why do people who own second properties seem to be flocking to airbnb versus letting out these properties to renters? Surely people would prefer stable income from dependable tenants versus all the hassle that comes with airbnb?
It’s sad that something that started out as a handy way to rent out a spare room in your house to solo travellers and stuff has ended up so fucked up. Expected I guess but the whole thing has gotten out of hand
They need more radical solutions and property needs to be seen as a basic resource like food and healthcare as opposed to a luxury or an investment.
Good.
AirBnB in Dublin is massively popular for country people trying to hold down jobs in the capital
Where I am in county Galway people are building just to put the property on Airbnb..While there are zero long term rentals
Don’t make paying rent practically optional to the point where the eviction process takes over a year. 🤷♂️
Then you will have small landlords go back to renting out their properties, rather than using Air BnB.
I live in the west of Ireland and Air bnb has destroyed any community here. Even new builds are bought up and used as Air bnbs/holiday rentals so local families have no chance because of the greed of others. I agree that there should be a licencing system in place. Sometimes though, I would love to just gather the names of the people who own these holiday rentals and report them on to Revenue. I know that if Revenue get enough of these reports, they will seriously start looking into auditing the sector more.
22 comments
A Sinn Fein bill aims to crack down on short-term letting providers and issue on-the-spot fines.
The legislation would re- quire estate agents and online hosting platforms to check if property owners have the correct planning documents before advertising their properties on their websites.
If not, the laws would mean the platforms would be fined the amount they would earn per day from the property being rented out from their website.
It comes following an Irish Independent report that councils across the country are not clamping down on properties being let out for more than 90 days a year – longer leases that require planning permission.
The majority of counties have many more advertisements on Airbnb than they do on Daft.ie.
As the housing crisis deepens, the number of properties available to rent long-term has decreased, while lucrative short-term lets have soared in popularity.
Data shows councils in 12 counties did not issue any warning letters last year and 11 did not launch any investigations into properties that may have been rented out for longer than 90 days.
“We need to crack down on the illegal short-term letting of rental homes to ensure these homes are returned to the rental system,” Sinn Féin housing spokesperson said.
“The current enforcement regime rests with the local authorities, but, unfortunately, it is very slow and many local authorities are not adequately resourced by government to enforce the regulations.
“Stricter enforcement is required, and this bill does what many of us were calling for when the regulations were first introduced.”
Mr Ó Broin said the bill, which will be launched next week, would also give the housing minister powers to impose penalties.
“The bill also allows the minister to give local authorities the power to issue spot fines to short-term lettings providers and estate agents that advertise non-compliant properties,” he said, adding that there is an “ever-dwindling” supply of affordable homes across the State.
The fact that SF are making noise about it suggests to me that it’s probably not a real problem. Does anybody know if Airbnb has a material impact?
Honestly Airbnb is often not worth the hassle for single room. Hotels and B&B are often the same price and better located. However Airbnb is brilliant for holiday homes for short or weekly bookings for groups.
Targeting air bnb will do nothing to rent prices. It will just remove more small landlords from the market.
Because Airbnb have its base of EU operations in Ireland and employs 400 people, I feel like the government would never be too harsh on them, regardless of how damaging they are (or aren’t)
ETA: I honestly thought Airbnb was a city problem, but I’ve looked at my small town and there are so many full houses and apartments up for rent, I’m shocked by the number of them. Every day on my local facebook group there’s people asking to be informed about any places coming up for rent because there’s so much competition for the few shitty homes that come up. Mind instantly made up, down with Airbnb
Wasn’t this promised years ago by the government?
I use ABB once a year when doing Dublin City Marathon. Always go for a “granny flat” style place.
They’re perfect as usually in quiet estates, and hotels or b+bs can’t provide breakfast at the time needed, plus we have to eat our own prepared breakfast anyway!
Any place we’ve got has always been nice, but not somewhere I’d want to call home, even sort term.
Anecdotally, but I have family members who run an airbnb.
They used to rent their old house out, but once airbnb became a thing, it’s waaaaay more profitable to do that instead. They, like most people, wouldnt willingly cut their income. But if the government banned air bnbs, they’d go back to renting it out.
It’s a disgrace to allow airbnb to operate when we’re in the middle of a housing crisis.
If a person owns the property is it not their choice what they want to do with it.
Isn’t this the purpose of private property?
Great news. Perfectly good house in the country side near my parents that could be sold or rented out seeing as the people who own it have absolutely no need. No, they want to rent it on airbnb to make even more money for themselves. Fuck em
You got to give credit to SF for knowing what people want and not what they need. According to [insideairbnb.com](https://insideairbnb.com) there is a mere 386 entire properties regularly rented in the county of Dublin on [airbnb.com](https://airbnb.com).
This bill will achieve fuck all in reality, but most importantly will win SF brownie points.
Cracking down on Airbnb like that rightly pushes it back to what it was intended for, renting out a spare room to generate a bit of extra cash and provide cheaper accommodation than a hotel
This makes it sound like SF are taking holiday cottages to a secluded location for old-school interrogation. Where are the kneecaps on chalets, exactly?
They need a system where you need to get a license to rent out a property, long or short term, and ban any ads that don’t have a licence number included, and fine companies who advertise without confirming the owner has an up to date licence.
While I’m not a fan of airbnb, I don’t feel like political interference such as this will fix things.
We should be asking why do people who own second properties seem to be flocking to airbnb versus letting out these properties to renters? Surely people would prefer stable income from dependable tenants versus all the hassle that comes with airbnb?
It’s sad that something that started out as a handy way to rent out a spare room in your house to solo travellers and stuff has ended up so fucked up. Expected I guess but the whole thing has gotten out of hand
They need more radical solutions and property needs to be seen as a basic resource like food and healthcare as opposed to a luxury or an investment.
Good.
AirBnB in Dublin is massively popular for country people trying to hold down jobs in the capital
Where I am in county Galway people are building just to put the property on Airbnb..While there are zero long term rentals
Don’t make paying rent practically optional to the point where the eviction process takes over a year. 🤷♂️
Then you will have small landlords go back to renting out their properties, rather than using Air BnB.
I live in the west of Ireland and Air bnb has destroyed any community here. Even new builds are bought up and used as Air bnbs/holiday rentals so local families have no chance because of the greed of others. I agree that there should be a licencing system in place. Sometimes though, I would love to just gather the names of the people who own these holiday rentals and report them on to Revenue. I know that if Revenue get enough of these reports, they will seriously start looking into auditing the sector more.