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If you bought a doll’s house in a shop, and you got home and found out that it was a fire hazard, you’d be allowed to bring it back immediately and repaired for you. But it’s not the same for us: we were sold a property in good faith, we bought it in good faith, and it has a lot of deficiencies.- Killian Ryan, resident of Beacon South Quarter apartments.
THE RESIDENTS OF Beacon South Quarter apartments have a decision to make: pay thousands of euros to fix structural problems with the buildings they own, or refuse.
These problems are causing water ingress in some of the apartments; while other deficiencies are classed as non-compliant with fire safety issues – issues that residents have been reporting for some time.
On Wednesday 18 January, residents were sent invoices to fix the problems, and a notice that at an AGM meeting next Monday, they’ll be given all the information about the problems and asked to vote on whether the apartment owners will agree to pay.
The have no idea what they’ll have to pay – they’re only going off media reports ranging from a total bill of €9 million to €31 million: one resident says the potential invoice could be for €10-15,000 per owner.
Owner
Killian Ryan bought one of the 800 Beacon South Quarter apartments in 2008 under the affordable housing scheme.
Killian says that 20% of the apartments are owner-occupiers, property company Ires Reit own around a quarter, and the rest is divided up between the county council, Cluid housing scheme, Circle voluntary housing scheme, and investors.
They’re really nice apartments, well-kitted out, a facade, lovely interior, decent enough size. Ours is a two-bed apartment on a single floor, but some are one- and three-bedroom apartments, others are duplexes.
He says that water has been leaking into his living room for the last five years, and that they’ve been pursuing it with the insurance company – hoping that they’ll pay. It was only when there was an investigation into the development of the apartment last year that they started stripping walls and realised “bits were missing”.
Monday meetings
It was only when the invoice came through that some of the residents decided to host a meeting to decide if they would go public and contact politicians and press.
They stuck posters in the lifts, set up a website, and used the existing Facebook Page to spread the message. At first residents were concerned that if the news got out their property prices would fall – but after the news was leaked to the media before the first meeting was even held, it was too late to go back.
They met last Monday and again this Monday, ahead of next week’s vote – and although Killian says most of the 120 people who turned up to this week’s meeting seemed to oppose the charge, he’s not sure it will be rejected.
Yesterday, the Irish Times reported that Ires Reit, which is the largest single owner of apartments at Beacon South Quarter, plans to vote in favour of the charge.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he says. “Our neighbours, our friends, we’re all in shock. I’m getting married this year – I don’t know where the money will come from.”
Killian says they’ve been told the problems aren’t so bad that they’ll have to evacuate but changes are needed to be fire safety compliant and for the structural soundness of the building.
Each block has a different set of problems and a different price tag attached to it.
A lot of residents have come forward to tell their story not because they think it will help them, but because they don’t want this kind of thing to happen again.
“I thought we had a government to govern over these things, to oversee development. But developers are just self-regulating,” Killian says.
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It’s just a disgrace. I really feel for the owner occupier. There was two chances to establish if the building was fit for habitation at the build stage with meeting planning regulation and the purchasing survey. Both missed the problems. It makes you wonder what’s their role and it’s the owner who pays for their failings? Totally wrong and as long as this allowed then developers will continue to cut corners.
And what about the young investor? Not feel for him? The 30 or 40 something self employed guy who put all his savings into this one apartment as his future pension because that’s all he will have in 30 years when he retires?
He won’t have a company or public sector juicy pension just a rotten damp apartment to try and rent out as an income in old age.
Investments come with risks though, if they invested in I don’t know shares in a software company should we feel for them anymore than investing in bricks ? There is no such thing as a sure thing as they say. Sage advice at all times
@Melissa, during the boom, the Dept of the Environment and Local Government directed local authorities to inspect 5% of what was being built, and even that threw up enough problems to keep the inspectors in court most of the time and not on site. The pre-purchase inspection will always have disclaimers to the effect that ‘nothing was opened up’ etc so that it really doesn’t go deeply into structural issues.
@Scoop: this is not matter of risk, but rather fraud by the builder and/or the council and those who were supposed – by law – to check that the building met all regulations. Basically everyone involved were sold a flawed good.
Again: the fact that someone may have bought any of those properties as an investment does not diminish their rights.
Let’s stop demonising anyone who makes an investment: sometimes investors are ordinary people and not necessarily vultures. This approach is really a “communist” one and does nothing to improve society.
@Greg Kelly: If he wanted a “juicy pension” then why didn’t he get a job in the public sector. Yep, it’s called having a choice and then living with that choice.
Sorry Scoop but that’s just $h1t. You might worry that the property will devalue or hold its own. You shouldn’t have to worry that you were sold a lame duck that was never fit for purpose.
Snags where done but the issue was with how the properties have been built and the underhanded way developers operated.
Some comments here that the local authority are to blame. To be fair and the time these where constructed it isn’t their fault. Planning regs and building regs are seperate. What’s submitted to the planning dept are planning drawings which aren’t nearly as detailed as construction drawings. The duty is on the builder to construct in accordance with building regs. There are some spot checks but at the time it was completely self regulation. Fire Certs are lodged through the local authority but approved by dublin fire brigade based on drawings submitted, that they build what the say they will build. Regs have tightened up over the past couple of years for appt complexes like these. Not a perfect system by any means but the developer and imo the architect signing off are at fault.
Three chances, there was a fire in the undergound car park of the complex over 7 years ago. The goverment system failed , they should step in and resolve the issue. The fact that they won’t speaks volumes about other properties yet to be discovered.
The message is : never buy your own home.
You’re going to spend 35 years paying off your mortgage and paying property tax, paying for repairs and upkeep of the property yourself.
Go on the dole, have 5 kids and get a free house. You won’t have to pay for any of the above and you’ll never be kicked out. And you’ll be living next door to the above fool paying for both his and your apartment (through taxation).
Why don’t the government/Council hand back the tax paid on the apartments when they were built to pay for the repairs.They obviously didn’t provide enough inspectors to inspect the properties so why should they get paid tax/charges for not doing their job!
Why doesn’t the home bond scheme pay for this (assuming the developer is busy relaxing in Marbella)? Have never actually heard of that scheme being useful.
The residents trying to keep the issue quiet so as to maintain the property prices is a bit disingenuous and I wonder what the motive for that was.
The system no longer requires inspection by the council as they did away with the building bylaw approval. They made it so private surveyors sign off. They can’t sue them because it can’t be proved that they weren’t mislead by the builders. The system was heavily criticised when they changed it but it was many years before the building boom and it had worked. When the building boom started the builders had figured out how the could cut corners without it being noticed. Very easy to show the surveyor they were building all the places the same but only doing it for the time the surveyor was there. No fault of the surveyor but how do you prove who is to blame. Bring back the proper inspection process
@justanothertaxpayer: Homebond scheme, was just like the PPI’s in banks and not worth a toss. Another scam, to fool buyers into buying bad properties and getting stuck with its faults afterwards. You can blame FF/FG/L for this, their friends were looked after with weak laws they lobbied for and you lot keep voting for them.
@stephen – it was a simple comment on the value of home bond.
You have no idea what my voting record is so you can leave that bit out next time and not presume to know
Home bond is another scam. Try finding something it covers.
Whoever would want to buy an apartment and get tied into situations such as this one plus yearly maintenance fees which residents seem to have no control over the charges from one year to the next. In this case it’s the builders/surveyors should be sued, certainly not an owners problem!!!
@et:
Sued?
If you build apartments which don’t comply with safety standards, you should face criminal charges.
Surely Consumer Rights should be involved. If you purchase a product and it is faulty you have right’s. If a builder builds a property which does not meet building regulations (whether he is a aware of it or not), he has to be held accountable.
Who exactly do you sue/prosecute? The small building company hired by the big guy or the big guy that hired the small company? Who was putting the wall up? The surveyor who was shown 1 wall being built correctly and then the builder builds the remainder incorrectly? The foreman who told the workers to cut corners? How do you prove any of it? There is a reason you can’t do anything as you can’t prove who is responsible.
Some taxpayer money will sort this out.
Will the vulture funded owner use clout to out vote the individual owners?
Give over about the vultures ffs. It’s nothing to do with what the article is about . Whatever about the water leaking it’s not acceptable fire code issues were missed. But back to the water leaking – how does it go on for 5 years without being identified ???
A lot of these apartments are owned by one vulture group. If each apartment has a vote as to whether to pay €10000 per apartment then individual apartment owners who do not want to pay could be outvoted by the vulture group. I was not referring to the bad workmanship of the builders.
Why would the vulture group want to stump up the cash for they ones they own if they could potentially avoid it?
Vulture group is interested in value of property only, so if they can get sole owners to help pay for that they will. In 2008 there was a fire in the underground parking of that complex, why the concern 9 years later?
Developer????
Should be named and shamed.
Avina> Who do you name as responsible if everybody points at the other guy being the problem? Was it the main contractor or the subcontractor? You could be naming a victim of a scam
Stop paying the management fees for a start. Who actually signed off on all these apartments in first place these people should be named an shamed. Hopefully the are not still signing on new builds now.
@John Scott: Great advise John – so in addition to having building issues your Management Company (of which all owners are members) wont have any money to pay for cleaning, refuse removal or common area lighting…..a little education before outrage please.
It is up to the government to protect Irish citizens. They failed you in providing proper building regulations. Not to mention health service, public Transport and so on so on so on…. Ist astonishing for many years to see whats going on in this country and more so, how you guys are putting up with it. It reminds of the snake and the rabbit…… frozen doing nothing
I don’t want to be a kill joy here but what about the old saying buyer beware. Did these guys not get a structural engineers report? Or was it needed if they bought off plans? If it was he latter then surely the builders bond should cover this
Frank, you’re referring to the legal term of Caveat Emptor (“let the buyer beware”). This only applies when you’re purchasing something that is “sold as seen” for example a second hand car with no warranty or a property being sold through a receiver. I would be fairly confident these apartments were not sold on that basis.
@Frank Duffy:@Frank Duffy: this isn’t a case of caveat emptor. The apartments were signed off aa meeting the building regulations. Clearly they don’t, so the buyers were sold apartments on a false premise.
I had to pay to have the water tank in my house fixed. It is so unfair, surely The State should pay for such things? The evil Bankers lent me the money to buy the house at the peak of the boom.
Leaks throughout the article “the have no idea what they’ll have to pay”
I’d love to know how much money was paid to surveyors to inspect the building and individual units pre mortgage draw down.
Who signed off on the planning and if the architects office was monitoring construction.
Tax payers bailing out failures of industry again.
Surely the ultimate responsibility for the construction of the building lies with the builder who is obliged to follow regs set down. When such cases are discovered the builder should face prison time, if you can go to jail for not having a TV license surely you should for this. A few high profile cases with extensive sentences will make them think twice in future
Who where the builders and why can’t they be held accountable ?
Not a chance I’d be footing that bill if I were them
Very same shit is happening at out estate.
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