Sir, – While house-hunting recently, it became evident that the majority of private landlords operate outside of the tax system and are not registered with the Private Residential Tenancies Board. There appears little official will to remedy this, despite consequential losses to Revenue.
If this underground industry is not intelligently confronted, a rental ban on energy inefficient properties (“Landlords face rent ban over energy efficiency targets” November 28t ) and any lowering of the rental ceiling for claimants will not only be ineffective but also serve to encourage more landlords to evade the system.
Significantly, such measures will simply limit properties available to claimants who require landlords to be registered. One would have to question the ideology of a Government that either inadvertently or intentionally increases claimants’ vulnerability while leaving dishonest landlords unchallenged. – Yours, etc,