Housing minister urged to remove restrictions on tenant in situ scheme

The scheme itself allows local authorities to buy up rental properties if a landlord is selling up, but additional restrictions introduced in March told councils to focus on prioritising families, older people, and people with disabilities. Picture: iStock

Members of the public have pleaded with housing minister James Browne to remove restrictions on the tenant in situ scheme, with families saying they are desperate, afraid, and will fall into homelessness.

Correspondence released through the Freedom of Information Act shows that over 60 letters were sent to the housing minister since the start of the year about the tenant in situ scheme.

The scheme itself allows local authorities to buy up rental properties if a landlord is selling up, but additional restrictions introduced in March told councils to focus on prioritising families, older people, and people with disabilities.

Some local authorities have since been forced to put applications on hold, including Cork City, due to a lack of funding to the scheme.

In one letter, a father writing to Mr Browne explains how he has been living in a rental property with his wife and 10-year-old daughter for the last decade.

Plea to reconsider

“Our landlord informed us he’s selling the property, but would be willing to sell it to the council as we fit the criteria needed for the tenant in situ scheme,” he said in the letter.

However, with changes to the scheme, he says his family no longer qualify for tenant in situ.

“I understand the scheme isn’t perfect, but to make it even more difficult, if not impossible, for most people to avail of it makes absolutely no sense to me — especially in the middle of a housing crisis,” he wrote.

“We’ve just worked hard and tried to give our daughter a good life and somewhere to call home. 

But with these changes, and the confusion around what funding is available for the tenant in situ scheme, we will be put in a situation where we will have to tell her the home she’s known her whole life is no longer her home

“It’s a conversation no father or mother wants to have with their children,” he added.

The father said he could not “for the life of me” understand why restrictions were introduced to the scheme.

“I would absolutely beg you to reconsider the proposed changes to this scheme, and also get the funding in place so it can continue to help families,” he wrote.

Housing minister James Browne has received letters from desperate families who are afraid they will fall into homelessness: Brian Lawless/PA

In response to the letters, the department urged individuals to engage with their local council to help them find suitable accommodation, saying it is a matter for “individual local authorities to identify suitable acquisitions in line with local circumstances and their social housing allocations policy”.

The restrictions placed earlier this year mean that councils are no longer permitted to buy any property where a tenant is facing eviction due to a landlord selling on a property.

 Previously, any individual in receipt of housing supports, such as HAP or the rental accommodation scheme (RAS), was able to ask a council to buy the property and turn it into a social housing unit.