‘Greed and lack of oversight’ driving student rental crisis
Absolute greed in a market with little or no oversight is how the President of GMIT Students’ Union described the situation where landlords are able to charge students up to €150 per week – only to turf them out at the weekend to fill their beds with Airbnb tenants.
Aaron Burke said students and their parents were being bled dry by a number of unscrupulous landlords who were taking advantage of their desperation to find accommodation in the city.
The overall shortage of beds, coupled with no oversight from any government department meant it was open season for a property-owner who wanted to take advantage of students, said Mr Burke – and they were ‘getting away with murder’.
“They’re capitalising on a market where there’s no watchdog, so they can do it. If any student comes across a landlord that’s doing this, they need to contact Revenue,” he said of landlords who might be taking advantage of tax concessions to have students in ‘digs’, only to use the room at the weekend for tourists.
A homeowner can earn up to €14,000 a year tax-free by letting a room out to a student – with most of these ‘digs’ only available from Sunday night to Thursday night, when the student must vacate their room and take all their belongings with them.
A post widely circulated on social media this week claimed that one landlord was charging 13 Galway students €700 per month each to share a house which was owner-occupied. It was alleged these students would be required to take all their possessions out of the rooms each Friday morning, as the owner operated an Airbnb at the weekends.
Mr Burke said such was the desperation of students that their parents were willing to accept this kind of treatment.
“You have parents putting down deposits on places they’ve never seen,” he added.
Some students in digs were the victims of very poor treatment from homeowners too, he said, with some landlords banning students from using the kitchen; some limiting them to cooking before 6pm; and others having a ‘lights-out’ time of 10pm.
For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.
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