RESIDENTS AT one of the Republic’s most exclusive mobile home parks, at Ballinacarrig near Brittas Bay in Co Wicklow, have been threatened with eviction over their refusal to pay a rent increase.
The 176 owners at Ballinacarrig Holiday Park, who include leading business people, lawyers and bankers, are refusing to pay the 15 per cent increase due to owner Malachy McDaniel Stone since last January.
Mr Stone has now instituted proceedings for forfeiture of their lease, which could result in their eviction, and the matter is expected to come before the Commercial Court in the coming months.
Mr Stone is also taking action over the failure of the residents to furnish a bank guarantee for their rents. This was provided by AIB, but the residents say they have been unable to find a bank willing to take over the guarantee this year.
Members pay about €10,000 a year in rent and service charges for the park. Now, many say they are having difficulty paying the fees and the value of their homes has collapsed.
Frank Monks, chairman of the residents’ committee that runs the park, said members felt the landlord needed to recognise the economy was deflating. Some were landlords themselves and had had to make compromises with their own tenants.
He said the residents recognised that Mr Stone “holds all the cards” and had the right to increase the rent but wished to reach a “commercially sustainable” agreement with him.
A spokesman for Mr Stone declined to comment and said the matter was with his solicitors.
Under an agreement signed in 2000, the rents were subject to increases of between 15 and 25 per cent every five years. The actual rise was determined by increases in the consumer price index or the property price index, whichever was the higher. This worked in favour of the residents in 2005, when the rent rise was smaller than the 35 per cent increase in property prices recorded over the preceding five years. This year, however, the 15 per cent rent increase compared to an 11 per cent increase in consumer prices, while the index of property prices is down 10 per cent over the previous five years.
Mr Monks declined to say how many of the mobile home owners were unable or unwilling to pay the rent increase, but admitted it was a “serious problem”.
Rejecting the exclusive tag attached to the club, he said the owners were “a community of people, not all high-flyers” and included “public servants, both high and low”. Some of those who hadn’t paid were “of substantial means” and not under financial stress, he added, and there was also a “small but manageable” number of hardship cases.
He said the level of default would become clearer by the end of this month, which is the deadline set for qualifying for a discounted rate for rent payments.
The guarantee provided by AIB to cover the rents ran out last January. Mr Monks said the owners approached nine banks to take on the guarantee, but without success.
He confirmed the landlord was unhappy about the lack of a bank guarantee and was threatening forfeiture of the lease.
Mr Monks said the rent increase was subject to arbitration, so the residents were still in compliance with the terms of the lease.
