Holiday home owners told to pay penalties

A local authority is insisting that hefty penalties will have to be paid by US, British, and other European citizens who evaded charges for their holiday homes in the south-west.

One owner of a non-principal private residence in Kerry faces levies of €2,400.

Kerry County Council said penalties will be pursued despite claims from many of the second-home owners they were unaware of the €200 yearly charge.

Under the Local Government (Charges) Act 2009, home owners were obliged to register the properties with local authorities. The act was advertised in local and national newspapers but not internationally.

The council conceded they never directly contacted some property owners, who said they discovered the charge indirectly.

Legal sources in Kerry say the legislation introduced in 2009 may be open to challenge by foreign home owners who had no way of knowing about its introduction or associated fines.

A retired English headmaster, with a second home on the Ring of Kerry, faces €1,800 in fines despite offering to pay the non-principal private residence tax for the past three years.

Famed Kilgarvan hurler Sean “the Rock” Healy, meanwhile, returned from the US in September for his annual visit home to find a bill of €2,360 after he too offered to pay the €600 charge.

Local TD Michael Healy-Rae, who has raised the matter in the Dáil, said councils can use discretion.

Foreign home owners were very important to Kerry and much loved in the local communities, he said.

“Only for the blow-ins, we locals would have been blown away a long time ago,” he said.