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SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, December 14, 2009

QUESTION NO. 5

QUESTION: Councillor S. Crowe

To ask the Manager is he aware of  in of the growing and obvious difficulty experienced by individuals or couples currently in Affordable 1 or 2 bed Accomomadation and with arrival of more children, their need to move more spacious accomodation, will the manager in conjuntion with interested parties draw up new proposals with a view to making a submission to the Minister for Environment seeking flexability and more positive and realistic change in this area?

REPLY:

The Council is aware that a change of circumstances can and may affect the type of home required. The birth of a child, the need to care for a parent, or similar life changes, can precipitate a requirement for a larger home. In all of these cases, the system of affordable provision needs to facilitate the necessary move to a new home. Where a larger home is required, there is also the need for this to be available on an affordable basis. Currently Affordable Housing purchasers may sell their affordable home on the open market  and endeavour  to purchase another home suitable to their requirements on the open market.

The findings and recommendations in a study commissioned by the Affordable Homes Partnership, at the request of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government was presented to the Minister for the Environment in May 2008. One of the recommendations in the report was to introduce flexibility in the affordable housing scheme so that purchasers could move from one affordable home to another as family circumstances change (subject to the normal rules in relation to income eligibility criteria). The report states that "affordability and the provision of affordable housing cannot be seen as simply a single transaction represented by the purchase of one property. In the same way as households purchasing in the open market or indeed those renting from local authorities or private landlords, those buying an affordable home should be able to have the opportunity to move to a different home when circumstances require." The report recommended that mechanisms should be examined to make affordable homes available to second and maybe even subsequent home owners if/when they became available. The idea being that an affordable home that was being sold would be offered to eligible and approved applicants on the Affordable Housing waiting list in the first instance.

The recommendation of the study commissioned is taken into account in the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2009 and Part 5  Section 84 subsection (5)  of the Act which deals with  "assessment of eligibility of household for affordable dwelling purchase arrangement " states, "Where, having regard to its accommodation needs referred to in subsection (2) (a), a houshold requires to relocate to either a different dwelling or administrative area or both, subsection (2) (c) shall not render the houshold ineligible for an affordable home purchase arrangement where the household ---(a) has previously purchased a dwelling under an affordable dwelling purchase arrangement".  

Effectively this means that provision will be made by the Minister, through regulation, to allow existing affordable housing purchasers trade up their homes within the Affordable Housing Scheme when their housing circumstances change.  The  Commencment  Order  to bring in  these provisions has not been made to date. An electronic version of the Act is now available on the web.