The School Yard in Drumcondra© Google Streetview
IRELAND’S LARGEST PRIVATE landlord is looking to introduce a €200 monthly charge for new tenants at one of its Dublin properties.
Ires Reit has signalled that it will attach an additional €200 ‘common area’ fee to the bills of people looking to live in its building known as The School Yard, located on the North Circular Road in Drumcondra.
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Constructed in 2022, the 61-flat property is located on the North Circular Road in Drumcondra.
Ires Reit – which reported revenue earnings of €42.8 million last year – makes no reference to so-called common area charges in online advertisements for its apartments in The School Yard and declined to comment when contacted.
The landlord also refused to say whether it was intending to apply the charge to its other properties.
With up to 3,700 apartments in Dublin alone, Ires Reit is by far the biggest player in the capital’s private rental market. It has reported an occupancy rate of 99.6% of its rental portfolio, which includes Cork.
Over recent weeks, the landlord has told tenants it is seeking to introduce the monthly charge on all new leases. It would amount to €2,400 across the year per tenant.
The charge will apply “automatically on all new leases” and will be “per month in addition to rent”, according to correspondence seen by The Journal.
This would cover the cost of common areas, but current tenants at The School Yard questioned the logic of the charge.
One renter, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Journal that there is a playground but that it is affected by vandalism and antisocial behaviour, meaning “it goes unused” as people “aren’t comfortable using the outdoor space here”.
There is also a carpark, which tenants already pay €80 a month to use. The only other common area is the building’s mailroom.
Tenants also raised whether the €200 charge was a “way of getting around” rent pressure zone (RPZ) rules. An RPZ is a designated area where rent increases are capped and cannot be raised by more than 2% each year.
This charge was put to the PR company representing Ires but the landlord declined to comment.
It had said a valuation of the Irish private rental market had found that its average monthly rent of €1,700 was “16% below current market rents” in Ireland.
In The School Yard, current monthly rental bills for some existing tenants fall within that range, but the prices being quoted for apartments advertised online are significantly higher.
It is unclear whether these apartments have had the mooted ‘common charge’ applied. One apartment listed costs €2,435 per month, while another is listed as having its rent “negotiable”.
Green Party councillor Janet Horner told The Journal that the proposed charge was “incredible” and questioned whether they were “effectively increasing” the rent of the homes.
Horner further questioned how the charge was “only applying to some tenants and not others”, and queried whether the application of the charge to more tenants could see it reduced.
“You would think that divvying it out across more tenants would decrease but that might not happen in reality,” the North Inner City councillor said.
“One of the major concerns in the rental market is how little negotiating power tenants have. They are so desperate they will accept these arrangements, but I would wonder are they taking advantage of tenants here.”
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