Hundreds of Galway rental homes fail to meet minimum standards
Twelve hundred private rental properties in Galway City and County inspected by two councils last year were not compliant with minimum standards set for landlords.
The National Oversight Audit Committee (Noac) said that 100% of rental homes inspected by Galway City Council in 2020 were deemed to be non-complaint with rental property regulations. This included 387 rental properties in the city.
The rate of non-compliance in Galway County Council’s jurisdiction was 99.5%, which included 859 rental properties that did not meet standards.
As well as Galway City, 100% of all rented properties inspected in Carlow, Cavan, Laois, Waterford and Kilkenny were found not to be compliant with Standards Regulations. Monaghan County Council had the lowest fail rate for private rented accommodation at 55%.
Inspection rates in the city are lower than in the county. Around 3% of rental properties were inspected in the city last year, whereas more than 12% of rental properties in the county were inspected.
Nationally the inspection rate of registered tenancies “continues to be low” at 6.7%, down from 9.9% in 2019.
The Housing Standards for Rented Houses Regulations states that landlords must ensure that rented flats, apartments or houses are “free from damp and in a proper state of structural repair”.
They require that roofs, roofing tiles, slates, windows, floors, ceilings, walls, stairs, doors, skirting boards, fascia, tiles on any floor, ceiling and wall, gutters, down pipes, fittings, furnishings, gardens and common areas, “must be maintained in good condition and repair”.
The landlord must ensure that electricity or gas supplies are safe and in good repair, and that every room has adequate ventilation and heating that tenants can control, and both natural and artificial lighting.
The standards also stipulate that tenants have access to a washing machine and a clothes-dryer if there is no yard or garden to dry clothes; and there must be adequate cooking and food storage facilities.
Meanwhile, Galway County Council had the highest vacancy rate for its local authority housing stock.
Some 7% of all of its Council houses were vacant last year, Noac said.
This means that 176 Council houses were vacant last December in County Galway.
That was ten times the vacancy rate of South County Dublin (0.07%), and more than trebled Galway City Council’s vacancy rate as of December 31, 2020 which was 2.08% or 45 vacant Council houses.
NOAC said it understands that while there is always a level of turnover of local authority rented properties, “every effort should be made by local authorities to ensure the stock is utilised to the greatest extent possible to meet the demand and needs of applicants on the housing waiting list”.
It added that Councils are funded by the Department of Housing to minimise housing vacancies.