In these lean times, when estate agents are keeping a closer eye on the bottom line, one cost that has come under increased scrutiny is the amount being spent on litter fines handed out for the erection of signage.
Alan Redmond, Redmond Auctioneers and president of the IPAV told us: “In recent times the local authorities have received many complaints because when times are harder and you’re trying to sell properties, it’s bad enough, but then being fined for just trying to do your work makes it even tougher.”
The two main instances where estate agents are found to be in breech of the act are when signs are placed at the entrance to estates rather then at the house in question and in rural areas where directional signs are placed at junctions. The punishment for breaking the litter act is a €150 fine, which, if not paid, will turn into a summons and possible prosecution.
To be exact, the litter act of 1997 says:
“19.
—(1) Where any structure or other land, door, gate, window, tree, pole or post is in or is visible from a public place, a person who is not the owner, occupier or person in charge thereof shall not—
( a ) exhibit or cause to be exhibited thereon any article or advertisement,
or
( b ) carry out or cause to be carried out any defacement thereof by writing or other marks,
unless the person is authorised in advance to do so in writing by such owner, occupier or person in charge or by or under any enactment.”
So signs cannot be erected on local authority lands and if erected at the entrance to a housing estate, the permission of the management company must be sought. Though the act states that the Gardai and local authorities have a joint role in enforcing litter standards, our enquires have shown no evidence that Gardai deal with the matter. Instead, they seem to have collectively kicked the matter to touch, allowing the local authorities to deal with the problem through their litter wardens.
One of the main issues raised among estate agents relates to the differing levels of enforcement of the litter act. Some Dublin agents have told us that they tend to receive warnings rather than fines while Michael Leyden, from Leyden Auctioneers in Ennis, who raised the matter on Joe Duffy's liveline last week, told us that he pays over €5,000 per annum in accumulated litter fines. He added that: “they’re down on you straight away around here but sometimes I go to Dublin by Loughrea, Ballinasloe and Athlone and by that route there are loads of signs up for months and months and nothing seems to be done about it.”
Leyden seems to be unlucky to be sharing a county with a particularly active environmental section. Last November, following the successful prosecution of two estate agents, Clare County Council put out a press release in which Cyril Feeney, Senior Executive Engineer with the Environment Section, said: "these successful prosecutions are a timely reminder to Auctioneers and Estate Agents of the implications of illegal advertising signs, which is contravention of the Litter Pollution Acts 1997-2003." Going a step further, Councillor Tommy Brennan, Chair of the Environment Emergency Services & Consumer Protection Strategic Policy Committee said "This [the prosecutions] is another success story for Clare County Council in eradicating litter in our County and the message must go out that it is an offence to litter and you will be prosecuted."
However, for estate agents, particularly those operating in rural areas, these littering offences are vital to business. Leyden explains that: “We have to put up a directional sign or an arrow sign pointing up a laneway or onto a secondary road or else no-one can find the place. We put that sign up at a t-junction or a crossroads and that’s where we’re getting fined. Of course, then the person selling the house is down on top of us – ‘you’ve no signs, how can you sell my house when you’ve no signs up about it’. When we tell them that they have to be prepared to pay €150 every week, they don’t believe us.”
According to Seamus Ahern, Administrative Officer in the Environmental Services Section of Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Council, litter wardens issue fines for any signs that they come across and then 21 days is allowed to pay the fine. He added: “We could take a direct prosecution but it’s rarely we do it just for a sign. The fine is incentive enough to take it down but generally we find they just move the sign to the property in question.”
Tony Maher from Kildare Tidy Towns has a slightly different take on things. “Where I’m coming from [a tidy towns point of view] it’s like a cancer, it spreads. If you get a load of auctioneer signs, the next thing you get is car sales signs, furniture signs, shops, anybody that wants to do business can nail up a sign … the bottom line is that when you see a sign up outside an estate and the house is in half a mile, they’re not advertising the house, they’re just saying ‘look at me, I’m great, I’ve this house for sale’. They put up the signs in the property to sell the property, they put up the signs on the main road to advertise themselves, not the property. There’s lots of other means of doing it, there’s publications, radio, internet.”
Interestingly, when discussing the standards of enforcement of this ‘cancer’, he added that “I’ve heard that sometimes if they get overwhelmed in the [environmental] office, the manager or the director of service will pull it. It’s quite common in Kildare for GAA summons to get written up and then pulled. They’ve prosecuted GAA people and when it gets to the office they tear up the prosecution.”
So is the number of fines being received simply a combination of the negative public perception of the auctioneering business and local council’s belief that the industry is awash with money? Michael Leyden certainly sees it that way: “The funny thing about it is there’s a sign in West Clare, a roadside directional sign belonging to the council themselves, that’s been pointing the wrong way for six months. It’s something that’s obvious and should be corrected straight away but they never see that. I’m someone trying to make a living, it’s a part of my livelihood but they see it as a soft touch, a money making exercise.”
He adds that: “We’re very careful about where we put the signs, we don’t have low signs, and we don’t like to cause a nuisance or obstruction. Sites are not made unattractive. They’re not unappealing and the main thing is that they’re not there forever; they’re not a permanent structure. They’re just temporary while a place is for sale and then ‘sale agreed’ goes up on it for ten days and that’s it and it’s removed.”
By all accounts the current regulations on this matter seem here to stay. Alan Redmond conceded: “I don’t think they’ll look at changing it in any way, they just treat signs of any substance as litter. I suppose they have a job to do but I think that certain exceptions should be allowed to the rule.”
Redmond adds that some people seem satisfied to operate within the status quo: “You could be fined for putting the sign up but you could get a couple of weeks out of it so they just treat it as a cheap form of advertising or marketing. Paying €150 for two weeks of prominent roadside advertising could be viewed as a pretty cheap form of marketing.”
Another tactic used by estate agents is the 'my neighbour's house is for sale' sign for which a token rent is paid to a roadside neighbour of a property being sold.
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