CityLiving: The issue of service charges hasn't gone away. Edel Morgan reports

Fingal County Council may well be considering battening down the hatches for its June council meeting. The angry residents of housing estates and apartment complexes in its jurisdiction have been mobilising behind the scenes and are planning to protest over the council's handling of the management company issue.

As anyone caught up in a management company fracas will know, it is a highly complex and divisive area which has been known to polarise neighbours into two groups - those who pay the service charge and those who either won't or can't - and drive even mild-mannered residents to make impassioned speeches at meetings. Some disputes are now being referred to the courts.

In March, two residents of Tyrellstown in Dublin 15 who refused to pay their service charges, saying it was double taxation, were ordered in court to pay over €1,000 to companies managing their housing estates.

Last month there was publicity surrounding the withdrawal of services at Castlecurragh in west Dublin following widespread non-payment of the management fee and residents are now believed to be seeking legal advice on the matter.

The protest is being spearheaded by Balbriggan Estate Management Company Action Group - made up of residents from around a dozen housing estates and apartment complexes in the area - and is expected to include people from other troubled Fingal estates.

The action group sent Property a report of their last meeting and there was an immediate sense of déjà vu. There always tends to be the same cast of characters.

'First, you have the enraged residents who refer to the service charge as "double taxation" or "a return to rates" and who can't understand why they have to pay someone to cut the grass in their housing estate when another scheme down the road is getting it done at no extra charge by the council. There is usually incredulity over sudden increases in service charges which will have invariably been pitched at a low level when the development was sold.

Then there are the local councillors who turn up, sometimes to lend genuine support and sometimes to monopolise the meeting and manipulate the crowd to satisfy their own agenda.

There might be a local authority official present, informing residents that the world has changed, that the council doesn't look after the maintenance of new estates any more and they have to accept it. It has washed its hands of these responsibilities by granting planning permission for a scheme on condition it is run by a management company. The developers, in cases where the estate hasn't been handed over to residents, are usually notable by their absence at these meetings. As a rule, each faction sticks rigidly to their own viewpoint, refusing to compromise or budge an inch.

The Balbriggan action group accepts that a management company-type structure is the norm for apartments but says it should be governed by "robust regulation". It calls for the abolition of management companies in housing estates and duplexes.

Interestingly, some of the public representatives at the meeting confessed they weren't "up to speed" on the issue of management companies. This reflects a widespread lack of understanding of what is admittedly a complicated arena.

In the past two months I have been contacted by two prominent organisations who are researching the issue and who were asking for help identifying the problems that management companies face. If these people are finding it difficult to grasp the basics, what chance do residents of housing schemes have?

Some residents are being thrown in at the deep end, expected to grapple with company law and become directors of the management company, a voluntary and often thankless task. For many residents there is a feeling they are being fobbed off by the developer and by the local authorities, and have nowhere to turn for advice, basic information or redress when things go wrong.

And that's if the development has actually been handed over by the builder. According to Garrett Mullan, who sent the report and lives in Cardy Rock residential development, there is no indication that quite a few of the Balbriggan developments in the action group will be handed over to residents. He says that some developments in the area are paying hefty service charges while other similar estates are being looked after by the council. The service charge for two-bed apartments in his development has risen by 35 per cent to €1,370 this year.

The agenda for Cardy Rock's forthcoming EGM reveals a group of residents who are searching for information on how their development is being run by the management agent. They have asked the developer for a date for the hand-over of the development to residents, to see contracts with service providers and audited accounts, and want an explanation as to why their insurance has doubled in the last year. To date, they say they are none the wiser.

- emorgan@irish-times.ie