More than 90% of Cork city's Hap properties fail inspections

One councillor said he has noticed that when properties fail on a serious issue, some landlords used it as an excuse to serve a notice to quit on their tenants to facilitate the property upgrades

The main failure reasons are fire safety issues linked to smoke alarms and fire blankets, oil or gas boiler servicing or inspection issues, and ventilation issues like a mechanical extractor fan in a bathroom, or wall and window ventilation issues. File picture

Some tenants in Cork City are at risk of eviction and homelessness following a massive surge in the rate of property inspections.

Cork City Council is required to inspect properties rented under the Housing Assistance Payment (Hap) scheme and the failure rate is running at just over 90% since that inspection activity was ramped up late last year.

There are now fears the increased inspection regime could result in some people losing their homes and ending up in long-term emergency accommodation. The warning came from Sinn Féin councillor Eolan Ryng after Monday’s meeting of Cork City Council.

He said he had dealt with six HAP tenants in recent weeks who have all been served with eviction notices after their landlord's property failed an inspection.

The city council’s head of housing, Niall Ó Donnabháin, said between the last quarter of 2021 and June of this year, some 3,018 Hap properties have been inspected, with 92% failing to meet required standards on first inspection. 

The main failure reasons are fire safety issues linked to smoke alarms and fire blankets, oil or gas boiler servicing or inspection issues, and ventilation issues like a mechanical extractor fan in a bathroom, or wall and window ventilation issues.

Some 80% of properties fail the second inspection too, with this dropping to 34% for a third inspection. But Mr Ryng said what he has noticed is that when properties fail on a serious issue, some landlords used it as an excuse to serve a notice to quit on their tenants to facilitate the property upgrades.

Mr Ó Donnabháin confirmed there has been “an upturn” in notices to quit and that Hap tenancies are decreasing since the inspection regime was ramped up.

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“It is an unintended consequence of approaching the rental standards as we are,” he said. “It is not a nice trend to have to deal with but we have to deal with it.

“We are working with landlords to ensure that it [the inspection failure] is not seen as a means of exit. A lot of the issues we find are basic and they don’t take a lot of time or money to address."

As part of a Hap tenant’s application, landlords must self-certify that the property meets the required standards. The local authority must arrange a property inspection within eight months of the first Hap payment being made to the landlord to ensure it meets the standards.

But Covid led to a massive backlog of inspections. It emerged last January that the council had begun outsourcing the inspections to a “temporarily-contracted external service provider” to ensure it met the Government inspection targets.

The council’s own inspection team has doubled in recent years and at full capacity, it can do up to 1,800 inspections annually. But the 2022 target, as set nationally by Government, is for 5,200 properties to be inspected.