COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, November 11, 2019

QUESTION NO. 17

QUESTION: Councillor F. Timmons

To ask the Chief Executive what Council rents are owed to SDCC? What efforts are being made to recoup these funds? How much if any outstanding debts has being written of each of the last 5 years and what was the reason?

REPLY:

The level of Housing Rents outstanding at the 25^th October was 7,876,937 which is a reduction of over €240,848 since the start of the year when housing rent arrears were €8,117,785.

South Dublin County Council has established a Debt Management Unit which incorporates the collection of Housing Rents amongst it tasks. The Debt Management Unit provides a much focused team of experts dedicated to working constructively with the Councils tenants while at the same time safeguarding the Council’s revenue streams and reducing the value of the debt outstanding to the Council.

The Housing Rent arrears are being managed by staff from the Debt Management unit. They contact tenants in arrears and work constructively with them in addressing their arrears through various means such as agreed repayment plans etc. Over the past 10 months Housing rent arrears have reduced by €240,848 or 3%

Housing rent arrears are written off only as a last resort and once all possible debt collection options have been exhausted.

The level of housing rents write offs continue to decline and are detailed below for the previous 5 years:

Year	Amounts written off during the year
2014	€0
2015	€269,108
2016	€87,287
2017	€54,556
2018	€0

The principle reasons for the writing off of these arrears include:

1. House being surrendered to the Council and dwelling subsequently reallocated to new tenant
2. House being abandoned and local authority unable to locate former tenants,
3. Tenant who have passed away and dwelling subsequently reallocated to new tenant