The extra rent increase for some high-earners in rent-controlled property will not go ahead this year because of tax office problems, Nos television reports on Friday.

Individual housing corporations and their umbrella group Aedes say there are problems with getting tax office information about tenants’ incomes in between 10% and 30% of cases.

Housing corporations have to approach the tax office to find out if their tenants qualify for a higher rent increase. They should then be told online if the tenant earns less than €33,614, between €33,614 and €43,000 or more than €43,000.

Unknown

But in many cases, the tax office has informed the housing corporation that the name they give is not known at that address or that there are no income records. Other corporations are still waiting for information to be able to log in to the tax office system.

Tenants earning below €33,614 face a 4% rent rise this year, those in the middle band 4.5% and those above up to 6.5%. The increases only apply to people living in rent-controlled property, which means they are paying less than € 681,02 a month rent, including service costs.

The aim of the extra increases is to encourage high earners to move to the private sector or buy a home and relieve pressure on social housing provision. However, the increase must be made known to tenants by next week in order to be implemented in July, when rent hikes are traditionally made.

Earlier problems

Landlords also faced problems with obtaining information about tenants income last year, and the plan was eventually put on hold because of privacy concerns.

The concept has since been enshrined in law.

Most housing corporations say they are planning to impose the maximum rent increases to help pay for a one-off €1.7bn charge the government is planning to impose on them.