A city council refused to take over a dozen Defence Forces properties saying they didn’t have the money to refurbish them and would face legal difficulties with occupants who had no tenancy agreements.
The Department of Defence had offered the properties in Rathmines to Dublin City Council as they were considered surplus to military requirements.
However, three of the properties were vacant and required significant work to bring them up to the required standards.
In a letter in February, Dublin City Council said they had no funding from the Department of Housing to make good the three vacant homes.
It said: “It was acknowledged that the level of works required to bring these properties up to the necessary regulatory standards is significant.”
The city council also said there would be “considerable challenges” in taking over nine properties that were occupied at Grosvenor Lodge.
The residents were described in the correspondence as “overholding” and had no formal tenancy agreements in place.
The letter explained: “This presents substantial legal and procedural barriers around clarifying occupancy rights and securing vacant possession, all of which would require lengthy and complex legal processes.
“Dublin City Council is therefore not in a position to purchase these properties particularly where occupancy arrangements remain unresolved.”
The local authority said they would be happy to have further discussions over two other properties in Dublin 7.
An internal Department of Defence briefing said there was a significant issue with “overholding” in Defence Forces property.
This occurred where a person had retired or left the military and they or their family remained in married quarters without any established agreement in place.
The briefing said there were forty properties in this situation, and only five of them had formalised residency arrangements.
The wider portfolio of the Defence Forces contained 153 properties, of which more than half were considered uninhabitable.
The briefing added that efforts to recover properties that were overheld would be “fraught both politically and legally.”
Internal records also detail how the Department was paying Local Property Tax on a number of properties that were considered uninhabitable.
A review found LPT was being paid for 23 of the properties with officials saying there was no “uniformity” on how buildings were being treated for tax purposes.
Asked about the property management issues, a Department of Defence spokesperson said: “There is a clear programme underway to improve and bring vacant and derelict Defence Forces housing back into use, with the aim of increasing the availability of accommodation for serving personnel.
“To support this work, the Defence Forces commissioned an independent assessment of the vacant housing stock to determine its condition and suitability for refurbishment and conversion into additional single living-in accommodation.
“As a result, a number of properties in the Curragh and Dublin have been identified for priority refurbishment, with the procurement process for these works due to commence in 2026.”