LAST WEEK a reader from Bray received a letter from Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Council demanding payment for the household charge on a rental property.

The previous week he got a similar letter from Dublin City Council relating to a property in their jurisdiction. “The issue I have is that both charges were paid some time ago by standing order, and no liability exists. On calling their Lo-Call number I was advised that ‘this was happening all the time’ and to ignore the letter. That I will do, but at 54 cent per letter plus the admin costs of sending these out, this is surely gross inefficiency. How much money is being wasted, and why is it happening?”

We contacted Dublin City Council, which said it had sent out 19,000 letters to people on a database it had been given by the Department of the Environment.

All told, 103,000 letters were sent to households believed to have an outstanding household charge liability. These were sent out by city and county councils, and almost all householders will have been second-home owners already liable to pay the non-principal private residence or second home tax.

These homeowners were identified using the NPPR database and the register of private rented accommodation held by the Private Residential Tenancies Board.

The council said it would look into the issue to try to establish how many letters were sent in error to people who had already paid.

At the time of going to print we were awaiting a response.