Four rental apartments flagged by Dublin City Council in recent years as in such poor condition that they shouldn’t be relet without works to bring them up to code, link back to the same investment managers and property manager.
In September 2023, Dublin City Council environmental health officers sent prohibition notices to the landlords of two apartments at 3 Sherrard Street Upper in the north inner city.
That same month, they did the same for two apartments at 24 Grove Park in Rathmines.
Property records show the landlords who share ownership of the apartments to all have the same address registered in Ireland at Martin Property Consultants on Lower Clanbrassil Street in Portobello.
Two of the apartments’ owners are Oded Glinansky and Nimrod Cohen, co-founders of the Ireland Israel Fund which, its website says, is involved in “locating and managing profitable real estate investments in Ireland”.
A welcome email to investors interested in the fund is signed off in the footer by Keren Ireland Israel Limited, of which there are currently three directors: Glinansky, Cohen, and Michael Martin of Martin Property Consultants.
The prohibition notices for 3 Sherrard Street Upper were recently lifted.
But they are, alongside an adverse ruling against the landlords at the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) in relation to a fifth apartment in another building, evidence of repeat instances of poor conditions.
A spokesperson for the Department of Housing has said that, “Prohibition Notices are served by local authorities in exceptional circumstances; where there are serious non-compliance issues and the landlord has failed to comply with an improvement notice.”
Social Democrats TD and Housing Spokesperson Cian O’Callaghan says that there are a small minority of landlords or companies for whom, based on multiple breaches of rental laws, questions should be asked about whether they are fit for renting.
If there is a pattern – not just the odd small mistake – then there should be legislative provisions to deal with those cases, he said. They should look at whether to bar them from renting, he said.
When there are multiple owners, and layers of managers, involved with properties, it can be hard to know where the buck really stops, says Gareth Redmond, a research and policy officer with Threshold.
References to standards in the Residential Tenancies Act 2004 are to landlord responsibilities, “which would suggest that the ultimate responsibility would be with the property owner”, says Redmond.
But, aside from that legislation, another factor in relation to responsibilities would be the nature of the agreement in place between the landlords and any property managers, says Redmond.
There’s no suggestion that the individual investors are aware of the day-to-day management of the properties or indeed the state of those properties that they own, although council prohibition notices would be addressed to the landlords and sent to addresses supplied by the investors as landlords to either the RTB or the land registry. The RTB can only proceed with cases, if it is dealing with a landlord.
Neither Glinansky, Cohen nor Martin replied to email queries.
What is the Ireland Israel Fund?
The website of the Ireland Israel Fund lists the addresses as among those for which it has struck deals in recent years.
The Ireland Israel Fund, the website says, was set up by Glinansky and Cohen to bring together individuals who can chip in smaller amounts to purchase Dublin real estate, co-owning the properties and spreading the risk.
The fund’s website describes it as offering medium- and long-term investments in property in Ireland, with an attractive return and comprehensive service package, and monthly reports on the investment.
And, the website says, the idea is to make money from monthly rents rather than through renovations and resale.
Neither Cohen nor Glinansky replied to an email asking, among other things, whether the investment strategy influences how they maintained and managed the properties.
On their website, Ireland Israel Fund laid out how they intended to make more money from 14 buildings in Dublin that it says they have sealed deals on for investors, including those later subject to council notices or RTB rulings.
“After the purchase we will improve the yield on the property, there are units for which we can significantly raise prices,” the website says, of 3 Upper Sherrard Street. Property records show Glinansky and Cohen as the owners of that building.
In September 2019, a tribunal at the rental regulator, the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB), ordered Glinansky to pay €2,000 to tenants in flat 8 of 3 Upper Sherrard Street, citing breaches of landlord obligations and minimum standards.
In January 2022, the RTB also ruled against Glinansky, finding that a rent increase served in December 2016, on a tenant in flat 8, had been invalid.
And, there’s 13 Sherrard Street Lower, owned by eight parties, including Keren Ireland Israel Limited. Of that, the website says, “After the purchase, we will work to replace all the tenants, any apartment that becomes vacant will be renovated and rented at market prices beyond that in the property.”
There’s “potential for improvement due to the size of the apartments, it is possible that it will be possible to divide 2-3 apartments and achieve an excess return”, the website says.
Glinansky and Cohen didn’t respond to queries as to whether it pursued this strategy.
But in July 2022, an RTB tribunal found that the landlords of a flat at 13 Sherrard Street Lower – one named at the hearing as Keren Ireland Israel Limited and represented by Miceal Martin of Martin Property Consultants – had breached basic minimum standards.
They awarded €2,450 to the tenant for those breaches – which included a lack of a washing machine, a dirty mattress, inadequate ventilation in the bathroom and fire safety issues.
The transcript outlines some disagreement around whether the tenant was blocking access for workers, but the RTB tribunal found there wasn’t evidence to support that he was doing that.
Also, says the transcript, “The Tribunal notes that the issue of access etc. would have been avoided had the dwelling met the required minimum standards when initially rented.”
Martin, of Martin Property Consultants, didn’t respond to email queries sent on 4 April as to why the landlord had rented out this apartment that wasn’t up to minimum standards on day one.
Glinanksy and Cohen didn’t respond to the same queries, sent via the Ireland Israel Fund email address.
At 41 Summer Street North
The Ireland Israel Fund website also advertises its involvement in another building, 41 Summer Street North, a three-storey pale-crimson terrace carved into a few flats that sits towards the end of a cul-de-sac in the north inner-city.
Property records list nine individual investors each owning various shares of the building. Glinansky and Cohen don’t own a stake in this property, the records show.
All of the owners have their registered addresses at 36 Lower Clanbrassil Street, the address of Martin Property Consultants. Again, there’s no suggestion that these investors are aware of the day-to-day management of the properties.
Luiza Loubet, who moved into 41 Summer Street North in early September 2022, didn’t rent directly from the nine owners of the property – and had never heard of Martin Property Consultants either, she said.
Instead, she found the flat through a guy called Jack Santos, who runs a subletting platform on Instagram called SH Accommodation.
She had arrived in Ireland in April 2022 and her flat search had been dire, she says. “We were desperate looking everywhere, Facebook groups everywhere.”
Someone gave her Santos’ number.
He set her and her partner up at a property in Swords – also through SH Accommodation, she said recently, at a table in the Insomnia cafe near Stephen’s Green.
But it was expensive, she said, and there were 12 tenants in the shared house. “So I was kind of in a desperate situation to find a flat. And as I have a dog, that’s really bad to find a place.”
When she saw Santos’ post for the one-bed flat in the north inner-city, she reached out to him.
“Did you like the apartment? Did you not?” asked Santos in a WhatsApp voice note to her after she had visited it. He needed to know, he said. Other renters were lining up.
Loubet said she would be honest: “It is filthy, it is in an awful condition.”
The former tenant must have smoked as the glass was stained yellow, she told him, and the place smelt, the fridge was full of rotten food, and the bed was filthy.
But if the place was done up, she would take it, she said. As it was, she said, it wasn’t worth what he was charging. His message said €1,750 a month.
“I know there’s an accommodation crisis, I understand this part and many people are desperate, but it’s not okay,” she said.
Santos promised a deep clean, a new bed, a new washer-dryer.
And so, later that day on 17 September 2022, Loubet got the keys and she and her partner moved into flat 2 at 41 Summer Street North.
Loubet didn’t know that, by the time she moved in, Dublin City Council had already been through a lengthy process of inspections and warning letters for the flat – and had earlier that same month issued a prohibition notice to the landlords telling them that it was illegal to re-let it until it was brought up to code.
Those found guilty of reletting a rental with a prohibition notice can be liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding €5,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or both.
Santos didn’t respond to an attempt on 3 April to contact him on WhatsApp and Instagram, or to queries sent by email on 4 April as to how he had come to let out the flat, which had a prohibition notice, and how he responded to the suggestion that this was illegal. The prohibition notice would not have been served on him. He also didn’t respond to queries about the poor conditions in the rental.
He didn’t respond to email queries as to how his subletting arrangement had come about, how much he was paying to rent it, or whether the landlord was aware that he was subletting it.
A short stay
After Loubet moved in, back in 2022, she soon twigged that the water wasn’t working properly either in the shower or the toilet, she said, and neither was the fridge-freezer – and sent messages to one of Santos’ colleagues about that.
Messages show a back and forth, and that someone did come to do a bit of work on the place, and brought some appliances, and a plumber came by to try to address the water issues.
But, Loubet says, she and her partner moved out after about a week. The whole building smelt, she says.
And, when a plumber did connect up the water, a pipe at the back of the building began to leak, she says. “So they had to turn off the water.”
Despite it all, though, she still paid for the time she was there, she says. “We are right persons, so we just wanted to keep everything square.”
On 19 February, the bottom right of the red front door at 41 Summer Street North had been patched up with an unpainted rectangle of wood. Panes on a second-floor window were smashed, with posters stuck over one of the holes.
As of 3 April, the flats at 41 Summer Street North had been removed from the council’s prohibition notice list, suggesting some works have been done.
A spokesperson for Dublin City Council said that it can’t comment on enforcement activities for individual properties.
Is there a better way?
Redmond, the research and policy advisor at the housing charity Threshold, said that its concerning that tenants can be left in homes with prohibition notices that have basically been said in writing to be uninhabitable.
Not every tenant is going to be able to move out of the bad conditions like Loubet did. “It’s increasingly difficult to do so,” said Redmond.
Threshold’s position is still that there needs to be a NCT-like system, whereby landlords have to have properties certified as meeting standards before they rent them out.
“It does make it remarkably simple,” he said. “Do you have your cert or do you not?”
You would have to supply that cert to register with the RTB, he said, and the RTB should get more powers to investigate breaches of minimum standards rather than just local authorities.
O’Callaghan, the Social Democrats housing spokesperson, said that he sees the answer to cases of very poor standards as a provision for councils to buy those properties and keep the tenants in place. “And bring them up to standard.”
“I think that’s the only answer, because otherwise you end up with people on lower incomes getting turfed out and nowhere to go,” he said, “and an oversupply at the high-end, high rental end of the housing system.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Housing said it is still working on its review of the rental sector, and enforcement of minimum standards is being considered as part of that.
“The finalised report will include potential avenues for policy change to be considered by Government,” they said.
Loubert, who lived for that brief stressful week at 41 Summer Street North in September 2022, said she didn’t know how she was supposed to know that the flat had been issued with a prohibition notice.
“They should put a notice on the door and lock up the building,” she said. And, they shouldn’t just leave people living in them for ages, she says.
She doesn’t know how people are supposed to know that the council has flagged issues already. “Especially immigrants, they don’t know where to check this kind of thing.”
She never took a case with the RTB, she said, as it was all just so overwhelming. “I just wanted to move out.”