Leeson Calls For New Public Register Of Landlords Who Own Three Or More Rental Homes
Brian Leeson has called for the creation of a new public register of all private landlords who own three or more rental homes. The Éirígí Chairperson made the call as the latest report from the Rental Tenancy Board showed that private rents rose by an average of 7% in the Twenty-Six Counties in the year to June 2021. Speaking from Ballinteer in Dublin, Leeson said,
"Figures from the Central Statistic Office tell us that about 80,000 families were renting from a private landlord in this state in 1991. Today that figure has ballooned to 300,000 homes. In percentage terms, private landlords have increased their share of the overall housing stock from about 8% in 1991 to closer to 20% today.
The private rental sector has always served as a mechanism for the transfer of wealth from those who are asset and income poor to those who are already asset and income rich. In other words, the private rental sector allows landlords to get richer through harvesting the wealth of their tenants.
Brian Leeson at the vulture-owned Walled Garden apartment development in Ballinteer
Over the next twelve months, private landlords are set to take in more than €4.5bn in rent. A significant portion of that money - in the region of €800m - will be public money funneled to private landlords through HAP, RAS and other similar schemes.
These are staggering numbers of homes and staggering sums of money. And yet the Irish people have no idea who owns these homes and who is amassing all of this wealth at the expense of their tenants and the taxpayer.
The dramatic increase in the numbers of people living in the private rental sector - now heading for one million people in this state - has happened without any meaningful public debate or democratic input. Instead we have seen the steady, creeping privatisation of a huge swathe of our housing stock - a reality which is having a profound effect on our entire society.
In the interests of transparency and democracy, Éirígí is calling for the establishment of a new public register of all private landlords who own three or more rental homes. At a minimum this register would contain basic information such as the name of the landlord alongside the addresses of all the rental homes that they own.
The Irish people are entitled to know who is benefitting from the current booming private rental sector, most particularly which politicians, judges, journalists, senior civil servants and others with significant influence in Irish society.
They are also entitled to know what Irish housing is now owned by vulture funds, pension funds, REITs and other corporate entities that fall under the ‘vulture landlord’ umbrella.
View Ireland’s only national interactive vulture landlord tracking map here #TrackTheVultures
The register we are proposing is not aimed at the so-called ‘accidental landlords’ or others who own one or even two rental rental homes. At this stage it aims to capture all landlords who own three or more rental properties - ‘professional’ landlords those that the RTB define as medium and large landlords.
We believe the number of landlords that would be added to a new register is in the region of 25,000 individuals and corporations. Much of the necessary information for this register is already in the possession of the Revenue Commissioners, the RTB and the CSO, so there should be no practical barrier to getting a register up and running within a short period of time.
A public register of medium and large landlords would pull back the veil of secrecy that surrounds the multi-billion euro privatisation of Irish housing and it would allow us all to have a collective, informed discussion about what model of housing we want for our country in the future..
The development of such a register would also be a first necessary step on the road to bringing large numbers of privately-owned rental homes into public ownership in a manner that the people of Berlin recently voted in favour of.”
Éirígí has been to the fore of researching, highlighting and pushing back against the vulture takeover of housing over the last five years. And we’ve led the call for a new system of Universal Public Housing. If you’re ready to join the fight for housing justice and a New Republic, please get in touch today.
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