Plans for a vacant property tax are very positive but “the devil will be in the detail.”

The Housing Minister will next week bring the latest draft of the Government’s new Housing for All plan to the Cabinet sub-committee for sign-off by senior ministers.

The Irish Times reports that the long-term plan will include a vacant property tax, with talks ongoing over whether to include a vacant sites tax and grant to encourage buyers to renovate vacant properties up and down the country.

The vacant property tax is likely to be based on information gathered as part of the local property tax system – which requires homeowners declare unused homes and explain why they are empty.

Devil in the detail

On Lunchtime Live this afternoon, Maynooth University Housing Professor Dr Rory Hearne said the proposed tax is “very positive” but warned that “the question is what is going to be in the detail?”

“Potentially it could work,” he said.

“There is in the region of between 180,000 and 250,000 vacant properties in Ireland and that is homes that are probably quite quickly and easily usable - they are not derelict properties as such.

Livable

He said the figure is based on the definition used by the national census which requires properties to be essentially a “liveable property.”

“It needs to be clarified as to whether this vacant homes tax will apply to the liveable homes as well as the derelict properties,” he said. “It is the detail that matters.”

“I think there is a problem if we don’t include properties that are derelict and run down – because there a lot of those as well; we actually don’t know how many of those there are.”

The proposed tax is likely to replace to current vacant sites levy which was introduced in 2019.

Vacant Property Tax

Dr Hearne said the current levy hasn’t worked.

He noted that there were a number of loopholes – notably that sites under certain size were exempt as were those that had debt associated with them.

Meanwhile the levy was to be collected by local authorities which generally do not have the resources to do so.

“This appears to be different,” he said. “It appears the Revenue will be given the power to assess this and obviously that brings, you would hope, a more thorough analysis of where these vacant properties are and who owns them etc.”

“Overall, it is a positive move, but the detail needs to be looked at as to how it will be effective,” he said.

“What we want to do is bring these properties into use because with the scale and the amount of them, it could really have an impact on the housing crisis.”

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