Rent arrears in Tipperary County Council rose by over half a million euro in just four months.
Between September of last year and January of this year, rent arrears rose by more than €526,000.
Councillor Seamie Morris is now calling for a fairer assessment and review system to be put in place to prevent sudden increases in rent arrears.
He spoke to Tipp FM about two instances where the arrears became unmanageable.
In one case, arrears were brought down from €4,000 to just over €1,000 upon appeal, but it was still a huge sudden cost.
“I’d been contacted by two mothers just after Christmas, that their rent arrears had shot up from almost nothing to in one case over €1,700 and in the second case to €4,200.
“Both of these women were you know, they had been very steady rent payers, they weren’t acting the mick in any way, but the rent had gone up substantially because there seemed to be some sort of a deep rent review going on that had been different to previous rent reviews, and that’s what really brought my attention to it.”
He added that the council are meant to carry out rent reviews every year, but now seem to be going back much further and back dating rent owed.
According to figures from Tipperary County Council, there was a difference of €468,162 between December 2021 and January 2022 for rent arrears and €526,824 difference between September 2021 and January 2022.
