Tenant Purchase Scheme

Incremental Tenant Purchase Scheme 2016

Since the 1st February 2016 existing tenants of Cork City Council have an opportunity to purchase their homes (ONLY 3-bedroom houses) through the Incremental Purchase Scheme introduced under Part 3 of Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2014.

Can I apply?

To apply, you must meet the criteria and you must also have the necessary finance in place to purchase the property (via own funds/savings, mortgage approval with a bank/lending institution, or Cork City Council House Purchase Loan approval).

With effect from 1st February 2022 the following changes have been made to the scheme:

• Tenants/joint tenants must have minimum reckonable income of €12,500 per annum. This will ensure persons whose pension is their primary source of income can now apply under the scheme. The change only applies to pensions - other social welfare payments may only be regarded as secondary income. 
• Reckonable income must come mainly from regular employment and not solely from social welfare.
• Tenants will be required to be in receipt of social housing support for 10 years to be considered eligible under the scheme. In the case of joint tenancies, both tenants must be in receipt of social housing support for at least 10 years before being eligible to apply.
• Applicants are disqualified from purchasing as a result of having purchased before.
• Arrears: You must not have been behind in your rent for more than 12 weeks in the past three years. Your application will be cancelled if it doesn't meet the above arrears criteria. 
• Anti-social behaviour: Cork City Council may refuse to sell a house to a tenant if the tenant or any household member is or was engaged in anti-social behaviour or on the ground of good estate management.
• Houses must be available for sale and not restricted as in past schemes (i.e. not houses specifically reserved for elderly, transitional accommodation, traveller accommodation, in interests of estate management etc.)

Properties exempt from the scheme:

• Apartments and duplex units.
• Houses specifically designed for occupation by the elderly (senior citizens complexes).
• Houses that have been specifically designed in a group setting for members of the travelling community.
• Houses managed by a housing body.
• Houses purchase by Cork City Council under the Rental Accommodation Scheme.
• You must not have bought a house under an earlier tenant purchase scheme.
• Part V tenancies.

Please take the time to familiarise yourself with the attached relevant documents regarding the Tenant Purchase Scheme and our step-by-step process on how the scheme operates.

If you have any further queries, contact us by email at TPS2016@corkcity.ie or phone 021-4924000.