In an effort to promote the purchase of its houses by its long term tenants, Athlone Town Council has increased its maximum available discount by 50 per cent, it was revealed at this week’s monthly meeting.
Since 1995 the town council has offered discounts on the market value of its properties to tenants who had been resident for more than one year, of 3 per cent per year of tenancy, to a maximum of 10 years.
In an effort to try and re-start this stagnated sector, the council has decided to up the maximum discount available to 45 per cent, but is only making this available to tenants who have been resident in a local authority house for 10 or more years. In all other cases, the previous rules apply.
Edel Martin of the housing section told Monday’s meeting that Athlone Town Council had 519 units of housing on its books, and of those, 172 of its tenants had been resident for 10 or more years.
“This looks good on paper, but a lot of our tenants would be on social welfare or would be elderly,” said Cllr Boxer Moran.
“You say there are 172 that qualify, but realistically how many would?” he asked.
Ms Martin could not comment on this, but confirmed the council would be stress-testing all applicants to see if they could manage repayments.
In reply to another query from Cllr Moran, county manager Danny McLoughlin confirmed the county council “is able to loan money to people who qualify”. However, only the larger of the two local authorities can offer this facility, and any tenant in Athlone who wishes to avail of this must make their application to Mullingar. This facility has been available from local authorities since 1966.
“Tenants can still apply under the 1995 Act if they’re in for one year. The new scheme is to reward long-term tenants,” he said.
