It is a Budget for builders, says small landlord Linda Condon

By Bairbre Holmes, PA

This year’s Budget has very little for landlords, Linda Condon, who has two rental flats, has said.

Ms Condon, who lives near Naas in Kildare, said: “It’s not a Budget for landlords, it’s a Budget for builders”.

While she agrees with the measures brought in to encourage the building of more homes, she said “so many” small landlords like herself are “getting out” of the market.

She said onerous legislation and a lack of support means she and her family are likely to sell their two rental flats.

Ms Condon, 63, said: “We won’t give anyone notice to vacate, but if someone leaves we’ll sell.

“At our stage in life it’s not worth it and we fear getting a really bad tenant.”

The mother-of-five said it is “too complicated to get rid of anyone” who stops paying rent, and “it shouldn’t take two years to get someone evicted” if they overhold.

She says she would like to have seen measures to help landlords mitigate these issues, and would like “to see small landlords protected as much as tenants”

A landlord since 2010, she said the rental income she receives helps make up losses accrued by her husband’s small farm.

She welcomes the extension of income tax deductions for the retrofitting of properties, announced on Tuesday, saying measures to make homes more efficient are “expensive, but BER (building energy rating) is really important.”

Ms Condon described initiatives to encourage over-the-shop living as “brilliant” and said the Government “really need to sit on the vacant property tax”.

She is also “fed up with gangster landlords”, and said there needs to be a crackdown on “landlords who are not paying proper taxes”, adding “they give good landlords a bad name”.