Apartment management companies are not living up to their financial and legal obligations and are putting apartment owners at risk of having unsaleable homes, according to a damning report from Dublin City Council.
Management agents and developers were "usurping the rights of owners" to make decisions about their homes and the lack of any legislation dealing with management companies and the weakness of existing laws were creating a sense of "powerlessness and frustration" among owners.
However, the report found that in many cases owners were contributing to apartment management problems, particularly through their unwillingness to contribute to a "sinking fund" to provide for major repairs or refurbishment.
Of 193 apartment schemes surveyed, comprising almost 16,000 apartments, the city council could only access up-to-date accounts for 62 developments, and in many cases these accounts were inadequate, the report said.
In almost a quarter of the developments, the management company could not be identified despite exhaustive research by senior city council management, and a substantial number of identifiable management companies had not submitted up-to-date accounts, or had submitted incomplete accounts, failing to comply with company law.
Delays in filing accounts and a lack of consistency in accounts made it difficult for owners to determine whether there was a lump sum in place for capital repairs, which could result in difficulties when owners come to sell their homes.
The accounts provided little information about whether the ownership of common areas had been transferred to the apartment owners and it appeared that "very few schemes have gone through the formal legal process" of this transfer.
