Westmeath council tenants facing another possible rent rise in 2024

Tenants housed by Westmeath County Council will again face another rent review in 2024, Monday's annual budget meeting of the local authority was told.

The council's head of finance, Jimmy Dalton, said the rent increases for tenants next year would be at "a reasonable level," adding that the rent review was being undertaken in the context of "incomes going up, both in terms of social protection and earned income".

There are approximately 2,250 social housing units in the county, and the council is budgeting for a 15.3% increase in its overall rental income next year when compared with 2023.

Mr Dalton said that rent increases next year would be capped at a maximum of €20 per week, and that the increase for most households would be somewhere in the region of €3 per week.

Cllr Paul Hogan voiced disappointment at the plan to review rents, saying: "I would argue that there's enough manoeuvrability in this budget that there would be no increase for any of our tenants this year, across the board.

"We haven't increased the property tax. We haven't increased commercial rates, but yet people's rents are going up," he said.

During the budget discussions, Cllr Hogan initially said he wanted to put forward a proposal to freeze rents for council tenants next year. After further discussion with council management, however, he accepted that this wasn't within the councillors' authority.

"Unfortunately it appears that it isn't feasible for us, within our own powers, to put rent controls in place," said Cllr Hogan.

The council's budget stated that the current average rent paid by its tenants in Westmeath is €72 per week, which is up from an average of €62 per week two years ago.

Notices to Quit

A separate rented housing issue was raised by Athlone councillor Frankie Keena, who asked about the number of notices to quit served by private landlords on tenants in Westmeath recently.

In response, he was told that the council was in the process of acquiring some 90 properties in Westmeath where tenants had been given notices to quit and were at risk of becoming homeless.

The meeting was told that that housing section of the county council had reviewed "approximately 200" such notices in "the past number of months" alone.

Housing staff had to ensure that the notices to quit were valid and assess the household's circumstances, before carrying out any inspection or independent valuation of the property with a view to potentially acquiring it.

"The process for tenants can be quite lengthy and some have found the process quite stressful," Cllr Keena was told.

"This year (the council) have 75 notices to quit where we're either at 'sale agreed' or the acquisition has been complete.

"We would have another 15 where we're fairly close to proceeding to offer, so I would expect that by the end of the year we'd be in or around acquisition of about 90 properties."

Westmeath County Council has pledged to deliver a total of 292 new social homes in the county between this year and next. The council’s budget states that under-construction housing due to be completed this year by the council or approved housing bodies includes 26 units at Gracefields, Drumaconn, Athlone.

Some 158 units are due to be completed in 2024, including 24 at phase two of the council’s social housing development at Arcadia, Athlone.

A ‘Croí Conaithe’ fund administered by the council towards refurbishing vacant properties for residential use has attracted 113 applications since July 2022, and 51 of those have been “approved in principle”.

A second stream of the fund will provide serviced sites at a reduced cost in order to support self-build home ownership.

The council plans to spend just under €27 million on costs associated with the delivery of housing services in 2024.