A clampdown is planned on landlords who are doing-up properties to get around rent caps.
Owners can’t increase rents by more than 4 percent unless they’re carrying out ‘substantial refurbishment’.
There are complaints some landlords are making cosmetic changes to properties to justify bigger rent hikes.
The Housing minister, Eoghan Murphy has told Dublin City Council he plans to define what constitutes as ‘substantial’;
“We know that certain landlords are trying to use substantial refurbishment as a loophole to try and get around their obligations. We know that other landlords just want to know what their legal requirements are so they can make sure they’re working within the law. So we have agreed with the Rental Tenancies Board to try and come up with a definition of substantial refurbishment to make sure we are capturing the kind of serious refurbishment that was intended to be captured in the legislation.”
