Senior ministers agreed last week at Cabinet to extend the Rent-a-Room scheme to all housing types, including local authority Council homes. This means Council tenants will be permitted to rent out rooms in their houses for up to €14,000 a year, tax-free. The Government hopes to add the equivalent of 28,000 homes across the country opening the scheme up to Council tenants.
There are around 140,000 Council homes across the country, of which between 14,000 and 28,000 are “under-occupied”, according to the Department of Housing.
This means there are a number of empty bedrooms in these properties. This is common in homes where pensioners live alone or families whose children have moved out. This scheme will encourage tenants to rent out those rooms, in a move to best use existing housing stock.
Officials expect to have the necessary administrative changes made at some stage during summer 2023, so we can expect the scheme to open to Council tenants in late Summer or autumn of this year.
