Meath County Council has confirmed it overcharged 21 homeowners nearly €700,000 for buying their homes all of which were built by the council but on sites provided by the purchaser.
The amount was revealed in recent days and according to the council the calculation error arose because no discount was allowed to the tenant for the value of the site.
The Rural Cottage Tenant Purchase Scheme allowed local authorities to construct cottages for individual housing applicants on sites provided by the tenant.
The tenant then had the option to buy the property from the council. However, the council's director of services Brendan McGrath said that when calculating the cost of the rural cottage to the tenant it had valued the site and house together.
The council sought a legal opinion on its implementation of the scheme in 2005 after a local councillor came across two tenants who believed they were overcharged. The subsequent investigation has confirmed this happened in 21 sales.
"Meath County Council has now established that a total of 21 house sales have been affected and that the value of the lands in question is [ some] €700,000. It is intended to make allowances to the purchasers for the site value and legal advice is currently being considered in relation to the amounts of refunds to be made," a spokeswoman said.
Cllr Joe Reilly Sinn Féin said: "this was a clear case of Meath County Council selling you back your own land at market prices. People, who in many cases could least afford it, were being forced to pay large sums of money to purchase their own home."
"Over a year ago two tenants drew my attention to the anomalies in the scheme . . . that tenants are being incorrectly being charged to the tune of nearly a million euro."