The Double Deposit

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Laura Slattery, in The Irish Times, reports:

Ireland’s biggest private landlord is asking tenants for two months’ rent as a deposit.

The move by Irish Residential Properties Reit (Ires Reit), which owns 2,400 apartments in greater Dublin, adds to the rapidly growing financial pressure on people looking to rent in the private sector.

Ires Reit charged an average of around €1,500 a month in rent on its property portfolio, according to figures published last year.

For tenants, that means finding over €3,000 to pay up-front as a deposit along with about €1,500 in rent for the first month before moving into their home.

…“Most traditional landlords still look for one month’s rent as a deposit, but institutional landlords have introduced two months’ rent or more as a new standard and that is spreading,” said IPOA chairman Stephen Faughnan.

“It is creeping up gradually,” he said. “It went from a month to six weeks to two months, and now, in some cases, three months. Certainly, it is something we have seen in the last few years and particularly in the last 12 months.”

Tenants paying two months’ deposit to Ireland’s largest private landlord (Irish Times)

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42 thoughts on “The Double Deposit

  1. Rob_G

    It’s true that it’s a lot of money to come up with, but when you consider the landlord is handing over the keys to an asset worth maybe a couple of hundred grand, 1 or 2% of a deposit seems fair enough.

      1. Sheik Yahbouti

        The same two tawdry gob(sh!tes) appear on every thread, defending the indefensible. I’m way beyond bored at this stage. Let me just say, “Thank you Micky Noonan, thank you Enda Kenny, thank you Joan Burton, thank you Leo, Simon and, in particular, Paschal, for this current state of affairs. Apparently we all deserve it because we are feckless and even disobedient. Shame on us.

        1. Gorev Mahagut

          It’s generally agreed that in the course of a famine, leaving everything to “the market” is a bad idea. It’s why governments introduced rationing during the Second World War: stop people with spare cash buying more food than they need. We have an abnormal situation with housing, and institutional landlords are gouging vultures. They have no rights we need to respect.

          1. Rob_G

            Your comparison of the current housing crisis to (i) the Famine, and (ii) WW2 is in no way overwrought and hysterical.

        2. mildred st. meadowlark

          Rob, that’s all well and good, but they can be slow and unwilling to hand that money back at the end of the tenancy, to the point that they are looking for things to charge to the tenant as a deposit deduction. And I’m not just talking about REITs here.

        3. Sheik Yahbouti

          Excellent, Rob-G. When did food become a human right? You absolute waster. The cheek of you to dredge that up when you would see people starve in the gutter, if that was party policy – and tell us it was for the common good.

    1. gepo the great

      you’re unbelievable .. seen you on here before, you have literally no ability to think of anything outside of your own remit. so you could afford a 3 month deposit, thusly you cannot not imagine how others would not be able to.

      1. Rob_G

        Three months is a bit much; I would have thought that two months’ is the norm.

        I think the issue is that rents are so expensive in general (so that two months’ rent is close to €3k); if you entrusting someone with an asset that is worth maybe ten times your annual wage, I don’t think two months’ rent of that asset is unreasonable.

        1. Johnny

          “Entrust” you appear very emotionally engaged,it’s their business,renting apts.They don’t get away with this form extreme vetting in Canada.

          “Depending on the location of the tenancy, the allowable deposit varies. In most jurisdictions, landlords can ask for a security deposit, which is usually equal to the last month’s rent. In Ontario, however, landlords can only ask for a rent deposit and they cannot use this amount to cover damage to the premises. In Quebec, the landlord cannot ask for a deposit. Check the Provincial and Territorial Fact Sheets for province-specific information on what a landlord can legally require from new tenants.

          In most jurisdictions, each year when there is a rent increase, the landlord can ask the tenant to top up the amount of the deposit. In practice, however, landlords rarely ask for it.”
          https://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/co/reho/yogureho/fore/replli/replli_004.cfm

        2. pedeyw

          There are a few things here, for one, It’s extremely hard to save 2 or 3 months worth of rent when you are already paying rent, and if you aren’t already renting, you won’t have the required references. Also Landlords are not always the best about returning the deposit, I’ve had that issue before, in my case bringing up the prtb worked.

        3. gepo the great

          its not like the landlords don’t have insurance, and that if the tenant burns the house down theyre goosed and left with just a deposit. usually the months deposit is for damages, which should be covered by landlord anyway, or its for in case the tenant leaves over night and disappears, then the landlord has the place covered for a month while finding someone new. the only reason they are doin it for 2/3 months now is to only get wealthy tenants, coz they trust them more. or its so that in cases where people lose their deposit, they come away with a bigger winfall.

          1. Rob_G

            Insurance doesn’t do you much good if tenants decide to stop paying rent altogether. It takes about a year to evict tenants if they dig their heels in, and as it stands, there isn’t really any mechanism for recovering the lost rent monies.

  2. Aisling

    The idea of that makes me really nervous.
    I had a landlord go into receivership, not tell us and told the people who took over that we had moved out months ago as the landlord hadn’t kept our deposit safe. As a result we thought we had essentially lost nearly €1500.
    Thankfully the receivers were sound and told us not to pay them rent for the last month before we moved out and that they’d add it to the claim against the landlord.

    1. Harry Molloy

      Dirtbag. I heard plenty of stories of landlords not engaging with their mortgage providers but taking full rent off the tenants also.

        1. Cian

          because they are getting the full rent, and not paying the mortgage.
          If they aren’t paying the mortgage, the least they could do is let the tenants stay for free.

          1. Anomanomanom

            Why? That makes no sense. They could be using that money for essentials like food and keeping their actual home. I’m against these people just refusing to pay a mortgage but sometimes its for the reason I mentioned.

    2. Rob_G

      That sucks; I don’t agree with their tax arrangements/charitable status thing, but the growth of REITs will probably make this cowboy ‘ah sure I will just hang on to this deposit for you’ business less common.

      1. Johnny

        Is it a widespread problem or are you just making that up to promote,the current govts policy off flogging the entire RE base to absentee landlords ?

          1. johhny

            anecdotally,so the continued fire sale off state assets to oversea landlords, with significant tax advantages,courtesy off current govt. will make this less common ?

  3. DubLoony

    and that deposit will be returned, with interest? It is your money, not the landlords.
    Needs to be held in trust for the duration.

    1. Cian

      interest is negative at the moment – would you be happy to pay €1500 deposit and only get €1350 back after a year?

  4. Kolmo

    Milton Friedman would be delighted his theories on no government interference in the his version of the capitalist system is working a treat here (i.e. – law of the jungle and let the government become an irrelevance, the is no citizen or a society – just consumers) except the bit where the large FG/FF corporate partners get subsidised by the tax payer with tax free profiteering completely and obviously contravening the common good, with legal protection and a brewing a social timebomb so large it scares the shyte out of me. Well done there. It’s the mindset of a famine bailiff. Basic animals.

  5. Junkface

    Landlords in Ireland a bad record on returning your deposit in full. They think it is their money to do what they want with it. An escrow account run by the PRTB would be the fairest way to manage deposits, as well as registrations of tenants and lanlords, but as usual in Ireland the rules are loose and flakey and designed so the landlords can always take advantage. There’s a culture of stealing off of tenants in Ireland and its totally dispicable and happens all of the time. Younger tenants tend not to fight for their right to their deposit via the PRTB, so landlords just leave them waiting until they give up.

  6. Sheik Yahbouti

    “Treasure Island” the head honcho of REIT, dubbed this country, and he wasn’t joking. Michael Noonan and all his buddies have committed treason on an exceptional level – for private gain. Not even the ‘Quislings’ of Norway, or he traitors of France could match these guys. And we all sit, quiet and complaisant, and let it happen.

  7. Rob_G

    Yes, people who rent out houses for profit are as bad as Nazi collaborators – oh my days…

  8. Sheik Yahbouti

    Yessiree, Rob, you’re absolutely right – let the devil take the hindmost – fair fecks to ya, you’re worth every single luncheon voucher.

  9. gerry

    And somehow landlords are prepared to go on the radio and complain about how hard they have it and how tightly regulated the sector is.

  10. Banana republic

    The new regulations brought in by the current government has generated this problem. To remove a tenant from a property can now take up to six months and at a minimum up to 40 days. What good is one month deposit to a landlord when such silly legislation was enacted. The real culprits here are the government ,blaming landlords and taxing them up to 60% on income. Time to get real tenants also the landlord is not always to blame. I suggest you the tenant examine carefully before you lambast the landlord.

  11. Banana republic

    Your forum has allowed for landlord bashing ,why dont you allow my previous contribution to be printed. Media is supposed to give equal balance to all sides.

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