Mr. Edmund Honohan:

The position with regard to the appointment of a receiver who takes the keys and tells the tenants in a buy-to-let property to get out is that the owner for whom the receiver is acting is in the same shoes as the landlord and therefore has certain obligations under the PRTB arrangements. I refer to minimum terms, etc. I do not see any reason there should not be a rider attached to the sale of a buy-to-let property that would entitle the tenant to the first option, to the maximum amount of time within which to find suitable alternative accommodation or to an application to court if this does not prove possible. There does not seem to me to be any difficulty with such an approach other than the possibility that the purchaser of the buy-to-let property, or the bank that is selling it, might argue that the value of the property is going to decrease because they are stuck with a tenant and it might take them 15 or 18 months to shift him on. That is the difficulty. Compensation might be sought in such circumstances. Any legislation seeking to restrict what we call the fee simple - the unencumbered right to sell a property - would be diminished if there were an obligation to provide directly or indirectly for the accommodation of a person.