'They don't even know it' - Meeting hears nursing home tenants still paying council rent

Louth County Council have been told nursing home tenants are still paying council rent. 

Independent councillor Jim Tenanty told the April meeting of the Ardee Municipal District that some council properties have been vacated by tenants who have moved to nursing homes and said the tenants are still paying council rent. 

Cllr Tenanty said the rent is "coming out of their bank accounts and they don't even know it". 

He said the Council needs to engage with tenant's families or nursing homes to resolve the issue because "there's houses lying vacant that people could be living in". 

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Declan Grimes, Senior Engineer with Louth County Council said the local authority's housing team is engaging with its vacant homes officer. 

He said the Council has moved to take back some vacant properties and said could use the "statutory process" to retake others. 

"If there’s properties that have been abandoned, and people have moved into nursing homes we can move to engage with those tenants to take the properties back, in consultation with the families and tenant. If there is a case that we have to take them back through the statutory process we will."

"We do rely on our estate management teams and local knowledge to get these units back but unfortunately we’ve nearly 5000 units and it can be a challenge to monitor the status of each one," he said. 

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