More than three months after Cork City Council launched enforcement proceedings over a house advertised on Airbnb despite receiving \u20ac70,000 in public grants intended to support long-term rental accommodation, the property is still being offered as a short-term let.<\/p>\n
The owner of the company managing the property said he has not received notice of any enforcement action. However, Cork City Council has reiterated that proceedings remain under way.<\/p>\n
The house, located on Grattan Hill Lower, was derelict until two years ago, when it was completely renovated, with work part-financed by public grants designed to bring vacant homes into the long-term rental market.<\/p>\n
That renovation was undertaken by Powell Property, which is owned by Miche\u00e1l Powell, on behalf of one of the company\u2019s clients.<\/p>\n
In social media posts in September 2024, filmed before the property was renovated, Mr Powell said his company had bought the property on behalf of a client.<\/p>\n
In the videos, Mr Powell said he was then in the process of availing of Cork City Council\u2019s vacant property grant, adding: \u201cThe grant stipulates that you need to stay in the [long-term] rental market for 10 years\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you break the 10-year agreement, there [are] clawbacks from the council. It has to be made available for rental for 10 years, so we\u2019re providing a net housing gain into the market.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Powell Property availed of a \u20ac50,000 vacant property grant and a \u20ac20,000 derelict property top-up grant, both of which were allocated dependent on the property being registered with the Residential Tenancies Board and becoming a long-term rental property for a minimum of 10 years.<\/p>\n
The property separately availed of a \u20ac22,000 Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland grant to upgrade its energy rating.<\/p>\n
The property has been advertised on short-term letting website Airbnb since at least October 2025, and three neighbours have separately said it is an Airbnb short-term let.<\/p>\n
When the Irish Examiner called to the property, a man staying there said he had rented it through Airbnb.<\/p>\n
No planning permission for short-term letting has been sought on the property, even though under the Planning and Development Act 2000, this constitutes a material change of use.<\/p>\n
In rent pressure zones such as Cork City, specific permission for such changes of use has been required since 2019.<\/p>\n
The property is featured on at least two separate Airbnb listings, with photos edited to make the rooms appear different, and outside the front door is a lockbox fitted for key collection by guests.<\/p>\n
Mr Powell said his company had leased the property in good faith for \u20ac2,100 per calendar month on a 12-month contract and the tenant was in breach of the terms of that lease.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not in the business of short-term lettings; we\u2019re in the business of long-term tenancies,\u201d he said. Mr Powell said he has more than 950 properties on his books \u201cand they\u2019re all on long-term solutions\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said he is engaged in a case with the Residential Tenancies Board and that process could take \u201cup to nine months\u201d. The Irish Examiner has attempted unsuccessfully to contact the tenant.<\/p>\n
Mr Powell said he had received no notice of an enforcement action from Cork City Council, but a council spokesperson again confirmed there was \u201can open enforcement file in relation to this address\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than three months after Cork City Council launched enforcement proceedings over a house advertised on Airbnb despite…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[62890,79,6037,807,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-593608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cork-housing-crisis","tag-cork-news","tag-cork-city-council","tag-housing","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}