Seán Haughey (Dublin Bay North, Fianna Fail)
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495. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government his plans to introduce measures to ensure that residential tenants renting a property are not automatically evicted if the property is being sold; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1159/17]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Planning and Development (Housing) and Residential Tenancies Act 201 6 was signed by the President on 23rd December 2016. It gives effect to a number of commitments related to tenant security contained in Rebuilding Ireland, the Government’s Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness, and in the Strategy for the Rental Sector, which was published in December 2016.

The Act includes measures to prevent a future recurrence of situations where large numbers of residents in a single development are simultaneously served with termination notices to facilitate vacant possession and sale of the property. In this regard, the Act provides that, where a landlord proposes to sell 10 or more units in a development at the same time (i.e. classified as being within a 6-month period), the sales will be conditional on the existing tenants remaining in situ, other than in exceptional circumstances. This will prevent large numbers of tenancy terminations occurring at the same time and the consequent difficulty that tenants would have in finding new accommodation. I signed the commencement order for this measure yesterday and it comes into effect today.