REVEALED: Quarter of rents and one fifth of rates uncollected by Louth County Council in 2018

Almost a quarter of rent and annuities and one fifth of commercial rates were uncollected by Louth County Council in 2018, with the local authority lagging behind the national average each year in both categories since 2014, according to the National Oversight and Audit Commission's Local Authority Performance Indicator Report 2018 which has just been released.

In terms of commercial rates, the situation has improved dramatically since 2014, when just 56% of commercial rates were collected by Louth County Council. The average collection rate for all local authorities in 2014 was 73%

2018 saw 80% of commercial rates collected in the county, a big increase on four years earlier but still behind the national average of 85.5%.

In terms of collection of rent and annuities, Louth County Council collected 76% of what was due in 2018. This was almost 12% behind the national average of 87.8%. 

Looking at collection rates in Louth between 2014-2018, it can be seen that they have been behind the national average each year:

Looking at the most recent available rent arrears details for Louth County Council, according to the September Monthly Management Report, the total amount of rent arrears owed to Louth County Council was €3,554,868.

€3,378,017 of these arrears are greater than 12 weeks old. The report does not indicate however how old the arrears actually are, so it is unclear if any of the arrears are a number of years outstanding.

It should be noted that in the report it states that each local authority commented that debt collection is an ongoing concern, and that Louth County Council advised that it created a debt collection unit which is paying dividends.

To give some context to these amounts and the impact they might have on budgeting for local authority housing, the average cost expended on getting local authority dwellings re-tenanted in 2018, averaged across all dwellings re-let in 2018 in Louth was €17,875.23.

At the most recent Dundalk Municipal District meeting, it was revealed that at that point there was 38 vacant homes in the Dundalk area. Based on the above average cost, it could cost €679,258.74 to get them all re-let.

As well as this, the average housing maintenance costs for Louth County Council housing during 2018 was €655.93 per house.

The most recent figures available in relation to housing maintenance requests for Louth County Council housing, indicated that there were 562 outstanding requests at the end of August.