Sir, – Fintan O’Toole writes about the predicament rogue builders have left apartment holders in over a 25-year period (“What has happened to the cowboys who built defective apartments? Absolutely nothing”, Opinion & Analysis, November 5th). He is correct to say that no responsibility has been taken for same nor have any changes to building plans and regulations changed in the interim. This is a very stressful problem for apartment owners. They may be living in unsafe buildings, whether through structural issues, poor fire safety or through water ingress and subsequent damage and mould. These issues can all have a significant impact on the health and stress levels of the individuals concerned.
For those living in developments, but not directly impacted, the resale value of their property is impacted by both these issues (banks won’t give a mortgage to a buyer buying in such a development) and future buyer’s reluctance, and could you blame them? They must also stump up significant amounts of money into the tens of thousands of euro as part of the money required to resolve the issues, despite having paid through the nose already.
While this may eventually be repaid through the redress scheme, there is no guarantee of this, and no doubt the redress scheme when it starts properly, will be difficult and challenging in order to be successful and someone in the development will have to take responsibility for processing this claim.
Furthermore, multi-unit developments must have management companies, a legal entity for which, several owners must volunteer their time to be a director which potentially has significant legal implications for those who volunteer to do so. Aside from the enormous amount of time and headspace this can require, these volunteers by and large have no experience in construction and engineering requirements in order to resolve these issues.
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Meanwhile, many of the rogue builders are off building more buildings and making more money.
Though there is good argument for legal redress against builders, at a minimum company law should be changed to relieve them of their limited liability, even if a company has been wound down, if they are found derelict with regard to building requirements.
The construction industry is unable to regulate itself as the temptation for further profit is too tempting. Staged building inspections must also be reinstated. – Yours, etc,
NIAMH BYRNE,
Fairview,
Dublin 3.