FAMILIES IN A Letterkenny housing estate have been left in limbo after finding out that a deal for their landlord to sell the homes to Donegal County Council is on the verge of collapse.
A letter sent to tenants in the estate in Ballymacool last week indicates the landlord plans to withdraw a previous offer to sell the homes to Donegal County Council amid a dispute over mica testing.
One of the tenants told The Journal they have found the situation “disorientating” given the uncertainty so close to Christmas, adding that they feel powerless as they await an outcome from the company and the local authority.
Earlier this year, nine families received notices to quit their rented homes at the Ballymacool housing estate in Letterkenny. A further six households were initially affected, but it’s understood these have left the estate.
The Journal reported on the anger at the estate at the time, with a number of families saying they felt like “pawns on a chessboard” and caught between both sides of the deal concerning their homes.
The landlord is Twin Estates, a property firm with offices in Letterkenny and London.
Speaking to The Journal, its director Phil Boyle said he is “one hundred percent committed” to selling the houses to the county council, but he blasted the local authority for “delays in taking a decision” to go through with the deal.
However, in a statement yesterday afternoon, Donegal County Council said that having received test results in October, it submitted “a number of queries” which it needed answer to so a consultant engineer could make a recommendation. The response received “did not adequately address” the questions and the Council was “disappointed that the vendor has decided to withdraw from the process at such a late stage”.
Boyle said he has been tasked by the London office to sell the homes, which he added are currently rented at around half the price of the market value in Donegal.
He added that he is “not evicting any tenants before Christmas” and wants to “make this process work and get the council to make a decision” on the negotiations.
Asked if he felt the recent letter to tenants was difficult for them to receive so close to Christmas, Boyle said:
“This is not on me, I am not taking responsibility on this. It’s been 12 months waiting for a decision. I have asked for a decision, yes or no. All I want is a decision.
“When is a good time, is it before Christmas or is it the 1 of January? There is never a good time to be threatened with losing your home.”
The remaining tenants have received an “eviction letter and are “all effectively overholding” by staying in the homes, Boyle added.
“Some of the tenants were cynical enough to think that I wanted to move them out to raise the prices,” he continued.
“It wasn’t – it was a purely business decision.”
Asked if he could sell the houses to a private buyer with the tenants in situ, he said the “vast majority” of people who are looking to buy a house are “looking for vacant possession houses”.
He added that some potential private buyers are “not looking to rent them out, they want to live in them.” Other private sector buyers may want to “double the price” for new tenants.
“Unfortunately that’s the type of society we live in. Money makes the world go around,” Boyle said.
Donegal County Council said it “remains committed to assisting the affected tenants and addressing their housing needs” and pledged to engage with the landlord to try and “protect families from eviction and secure alternative acccomdation at the earliest opportunity”.
“We understand the stress and uncertainty the tenants are experiencing and encourage them to continue to engage directly with our housing team as we seek to identify suitable alternative accommodation. The Council would hope that the vendor will cooperate in this regard,” it said yesterday.
Many of the families facing eviction came to Ireland from Poland and have been living in Ballymacool for the past five to ten years.
One man told The Journal that the situation has left him and his family feeling “endless” anxiety over their future in Letterkenny.
“I don’t know what is going on and who is doing what but as our future and families’ future depends on the council’s decision we should be regularly informed about what is going on,” he said.
At the centre of the dispute has been the testing of the homes for mica. While different sources have said that there has been no mica detected in the estate’s homes in the past, the council nonetheless wants to ensure this is the case before it commits to spending.
Twin Estates has said that the company has provided less costly mica tests which use three samples from the concrete, but criticised the council for insisting on carrying out more intensive tests which require up to seven samples.
The company has previously maintained that many of the homes are being rented at about half the price for the current rate homes fetch on the rental market in Donegal.
The latest development has seen the company contact households to tell them that the “decision has not been taken lightly”, further accusing the council of a “lack of communication and urgency” to close the purchase.
Boyle blamed the government for relying on the private rental sector, saying that a number of his tenants are “effectively social housing claimants” as they receive state support to stay in the private accommodation. This meant that companies such as Twin Estates weres “making up for the government’s lack of action” on social housing, he said.
He said the company has gone through the “process of evictions” with the Residential Tenancies Board, which he said has found in his favour on a number of properties. “They’ve made orders for them to move out,” he said.
“Nobody wants to have to evict somebody,” Boyle added. “It’s a sad thing but I need to sell the houses.”
The letter to tenants from the landlord dated Thursday 12 December stated that it was “with the deepest regret especially at this time of year, that I must now withdraw my company’s offer to sell 9 number houses at Ballymacool, Letterkenny, Co. Donegal to the Donegal County Council.
“This decision has not been taken lightly but due to a lack of communication and urgency from the council, I feel that it is the only option as my company cannot afford to allow the sale of these house to go on indefinitely.”
It added that the company started the process of selling the company’s homes in the estate in Ballymacool in November last year and has been engaged with the council since to purchase some of these properties under the Tenant in Situ Scheme.
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