Fire Safety Defects in Apartments

Your question is very technical and ultimately hypothetical. The fire officer is on your heels. In the end I think these works need to be done and you and your fellow residents will have to pay that levy.

it does sound like you were sold a bill of goods (thought you were buying one thing but were actually buying another). This gives rise to other complex but less hypothetical questions. Are you entitled to compensation? And who will pay it?

These are questions for your solicitor. Your solicitor may be at fault and if this is a possibility you may need other legal advice.

Ok, so first port of call with you is with your solicitor to find out did they get the Apartment complex current state of affairs which is known as the MUD's act. This would give the state of the apartments and were they aware of Fire issues at the time or where inspections planned. These things normally take months of planning so it wouldn't be just an 'out of the blue' event. Your engineer/ surveyor will check the visual elements of the property, but they wouldn't be requesting Fire certs, again the property management company will have provided this to your solicitor. Also, your engineer more than likely wouldn't pick up on any fire issues as opening up works would normally have to take place for inspection.

on a side note:A major property management company did an inspection of all it's properties and found 90% of the apartments in Ireland have Fire issues, so they can't evict all of these, it's only happened a handful of times, but the DFB will want issues fixed in a timely manner.

Simply ask your solicitor for the document they received as part of the MUDs act. It should be very easy to read as it's staright forward. If it hasn't been noted in the report your solicitor wouldn't have known. The bank would also ask your solicitor to qualify the title, if it was in the MUDs document your bank would have been informed and therefore your bank might not have agreed to lend on the property. If the property has a management company it could be considered fraud not to have providing the most accurate information. The only alarm bell I can see is that they have a figure of 15k already for owners to pay. That would indicate a lot of work has gone into costing. This wouldn't be done overnight.

A huge amount of apartments have issues and with the current lack of accommodation DFB won't be throwing out residents on the street.

Hi. The advice you're getting from ElBastardo1 is spot on.

When purchasing any property in a managed development, which is subject to the MUD Act (this includes all apartment blocks), your solicitor will have, or should have sought and obtained responses to a list of "MUD Act pre-contract enquiries". This is a list of standard queries, which is completed by the Managing Agent (as paid for by the seller). The responses would include disclosing the existence of this major upcoming work and costs.

If the Managing Agent failed to disclose this, it would be negligence on their part. If this was disclosed, and your solicitor failed to query it further and/or advise you and your mortgage provider, that is their fault. The bank would expect them to qualify the title in this case. I would keep pushing your solicitor to understand the position and try to get sight of this document. Though, from experience, solicitors can be extremely difficult to deal with in such instances.

I'm aware of this, as being in the unfortunate position of being an owner in a development where a fire audit was done a few years ago, with substantial works identified. At this stage, most of the works are done. I have been looking to sell for the last three years, and this issue has made it extremely difficult. Though some properties have been sold in that time, all to investors, who do not need a mortgage.

Regarding the costing of €15k, that seems on the high end. It would be worth getting together with other owners and the managing agent to understand the basis for these numbers, and who (if anyone) is contracted to do the work. In my place, while there was a lot to be done, one of our directors has been overseeing this carefully, and costs to date averaged around €2,500 per property.

The main issue is though the works need to be carried out. It relies on all owners to pay the levy though. The works cannot be finished until everyone pays up. You will have maybe 20-30% of the owners who can't or won't pay for the works, so everyone is screwed. People who don't pay can't sell their apartments on either as all bills owed have to be settled before banks will lend on it. The people who do pay can't sell on until the banks deem the development as up to standards. It's a mess. It's only when the threat of eviction is on the cards will people take it seriously. You may actually want DFB to be on your case in the long run to persuade owners to cough up or even engage.