Room to Improve - Grants 😱

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121623406#Comment_121623406

Surely not the people who had kids toys and family photos in the house "they were not or did not live in" or the people who encouraged them to apply for the "Renovation of Vacant and Derelict Homes grant" or who were involved in what the Quantity surveryor etc etc said was "essentially a New-Build" (her words, not mine)?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121623747#Comment_121623747

ESB usage should show whether the house was being lived in. It wouldn't hard to clarify from different utilities either such as oil companies, broadband etc if they had services going in. It has to be up to the grant applicant to prove this not the council.

I'd imagine all of this will be swept under the carpet and as far a Bannon goes, no publicity is bad.

SharkMX

That house when it was sold was in much better condition than most of the houses we were looking to buy.

I suppose id be told to pay a grant back if i got a grant for a derelict house on a clearly not derelict house.

But this is a TV show, so its ok for them. Id probably end up down the police station for fraud.

And even if it wasnt lived in for two years after they bought it, that doesnt make it derelict. My idea of dereliction and what that house was are two different things. But carry on, take my hard earned money to give to these people on TV while I pay through the nose.

SharkMX

I know someone who has left a rental house vacant for the last 2 years so they can decide to sell or rent again. I must tell them there is the guts of €100k for them for renovations if they fancy a shiny new house from it.

why is everyone focusing so much on the off hand comment that it was essentially a new build? All they were doing is referring to the scale of the work carried out not saying that the house is a new build. Like there's no line in the grants that says % of original house must be retained

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121623859#Comment_121623859

Yes there is. I know someone who enquired about the grant and was told the existing house had to be retained. It was a refurbishment grant, for vacant and derelict houses. The grant was also for environmental reasons, and to get existing vacant and derelict properties re-used, the existing structure had to be retained, your man from the council said.

Then we see a couple living in the house and then Dermot comes and takes the roof off ( a perfectly good roof, or the building would not have sold for €303,000 in 2022 ) and knocks a 3m high section of the exterior wall and the design team say its a new build. Like the previous week, the more grants the couple find they are entitled to, the bigger and fancier the glass box extension that Dermot can build.

Not a good use of taxpayers money i.m.o.

Some people work damn hard to save €100,000, and have to earn twice than much to do so. Then we see well off couples getting it for free? They were getting the architects fees paid ( probably the best part of 50k ) and possibly the Quantity surveyors, and they were almost certainly getting a good discount or rebates or extras off the window suppliers and the builder ( whose signs and logos were everywhere )...was that not enough for them? Greed if you ask me.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121623312#Comment_121623312

the only guidance I've coins is saying that completely demolishing the building and rebuilding a new one isn't allowed. They didn't completely demolish it, they kept the original external walls and some internal walls.

mickdw

Yes, the vacant grant could have been applied for without issue and they then occupied the house once approved for the grant. No issues there.

It could not have qualified for derelict grant.

I doubt they got that extra 20k to be honest.

DBK1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121623859#Comment_121623859

I’d have to agree with this.

I’d also be of the opinion that the grants are there for anyone to apply for. If you get accepted for the grant then great job, if you don’t why would you be looking around to see who else got it and how can you f**k up their grant for them. It seems like begrudgery to me.

Anyone gullible enough to believe everything you hear on see on the likes of these programmes has bigger issues to worry about rather than whether the neighbours got the grant or not.

Also with the obscene amount of money that couple have spent for the end product they have then they have more than paid the grant amount back to revenue from their spending. I’d argue they’d be a far more suitable candidate financially from a government perspective than a lad good with his hands that gets the grants and does up a house himself for say €100k meaning there’s very little gone back to revenue from him compared to an almost €700k job.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121624056#Comment_121624056

How do you know it was a perfectly good roof?

Did you survey it? I have seen roofs that look perfect, rotten to the core. I have also seen many houses sold and problems appear that were not picked up at time of sale. It happens.

You cannot tell just looking at it on the telly.

Also, that is the trade off for taking part in the show...free Dermot/QS etc. Not sure why the complaining. Everyone gets it, not just the wealthy ones.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121624120#Comment_121624120

The little bungalow was not a derelict house, or it would not have sold for €303,000 in mid 2022.

https://www.maherauctioneers.ie/la-palomera-cashel-co-tipperary.html

Fine looking house, if it was derelict, so are most of the houses in the country.

And Dermot did not say exactly what was wrong with the roof: yet we saw it all coming off and the JCB demolishing a 3m high section at the top of the end wall etc. The ceilings in the main part of the house were fine.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121624193#Comment_121624193

I didn't say it was derelict.

I did say that they may have told a porkie about grants to make the show entertaining for the gullible who swallow everything they see on the telly.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121624120#Comment_121624120

We've seen the photos of it for sale. Just going by those, it was in better condition than our house here and many neighbours places. As often the case here, it's not what you know but who you know. No way should they have received €99K of funding. The rest of the professional fees associated with the show are fair enough, that's a special case. But if they really did get €99K, a good portion should be handed back.

Former Former Former

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121624193#Comment_121624193

You're working off your definition of "derelict" and not the actual definition to qualify for the grant.

Some amount of viciousness on this thread.

gipi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121624120#Comment_121624120

Francie, you're right about the roof. During the programme, it was said that a problem came to light with the roof during the renovation - the joists were rotten and the whole roof had to be replaced. It was mentioned so briefly that it might easily have been missed.

I don't know about the grant rules, but maybe this made it eligible for the derelict grant?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121624193#Comment_121624193

all people are trying to get you to accept is that it's impossible for you or anyone to make a judgement that the roof or ceilings were sound based on 1) what was shown in the show and 2) what the house sold for in 2022

Fine looking house isn't exactly a professional classification as to how structurally sounds the building is....

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121624260#Comment_121624260

If they got the grant and it didn't meet the criteria then of course there is an issue.

What we don't know is what criteria was submitted and what was the actual standing of the house.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121624262#Comment_121624262

I thought it just said half way through the programme they decided the roof was "condemned" or words to that effect and they then demolished it?

I re-watched the first part of the programme where it went though the house when Dermot visited initially, and I noticed things there in the house I did not notice first time around.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121624260#Comment_121624260

+100%.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121624262#Comment_121624262

Let's have a look at that roof - we can see that the tiling looks in good order, the ridge tiles look intact and in good order, flashing around the chimney looks neat. What we can't see are the gulleys and the lead in them but judging by rest of the roof, they would be unlikely to be in dire condition.

So how exactly would the joists be rotten - where and to what extent. Maybe there was a leak from a water tank in the attic and some localised problem. But I don't know how on the basis of above, you could say that roof should be condemned. Bannon has explanations to make.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121624309#Comment_121624309

ah this is getting ridiculous, are you an engineer or architect? You've no idea when that photo was taken, if there was any damage from a storm or adverse weather between the photo been taken and when Dermot visited the house. He has absolutely no explanations to make to a random person on the internet who thinks they can assess a roofs viability from a photo from at least 18 months ago.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121624309#Comment_121624309

I have seen wall plates rot because of water ingress underneath them and that continues over time into other parts.

Dry rot can also affect properties especially if works are carried out that closes off airflow or infected timbers are brought in. This had a badly built add-on built which may have caused untold issues.

There is just no way to tell from a photo like that.

thomas 123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121624349#Comment_121624349

It should have been explained in the show - you know about building.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121624056#Comment_121624056

I don't blame the couple though to be honest. If an Architect told me I was entitled to these grants I would apply for them no questions asked. What needs to be clarified is if they were entitled to them. If not then you would believe someone would be responsible for paying the money back. Then it comes down to the paper work. Is it possible that DB would have signed off on the application in his name?

It really is amazing that the approach to this was so casual. The criteria is black and white and the definition of derelict and vacant are clear.

I think it's up to the architect at this point to prove that the house was in fact vacant. You'd wonder has the grant been paid yet. Could end up that the builder is left out of pocket.

sydthebeat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121624391#Comment_121624391

It's absolutely not up to the architect

It's up to the applicants ie the clients

Former Former Former

That house was built a long time ago. The roof was probably never up to standards. The fact that it was still up isn't enough for an engineer to sign off on it.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121624415#Comment_121624415

I have applied for grants via my architect. They have signed off on the application along with me. And whats more is if they are on camera encouraging a client to apply for grants when their eligibility is questionable they will without a doubt have a problem. It's literally their job to know the rules. The County Council would have required plans for the grant to advance through the process.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121624415#Comment_121624415

Correct. I wonder if Dermot was suspicious that the couple was living there - when he went in to one room and remarked on the flowers in the far corner, the response that came back was that they were "artificial flowers". We saw family photos, kids toys, shampoo bottles, briquettes beside the fire, white coat on the back of the door etc etc. The complaint was that the house was "cold" ie badly insulated ( compared to modern standards ), not that there were problems with the roof or it was structurally unsound.

The clients could have done a 30 second google which would have told them what the Vacant and Derelict property grant was really for....don't tell me they did not do that?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121624464#Comment_121624464

They chanced their arm and will probably be the better off for it.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121624464#Comment_121624464

The project near me (Drum, Co. Monaghan) rented in the furniture for the finished segment of the programme. Nobody would have guessed that watching it.

It was clearly a production decision to do that as the focus is entertainment. The same has probably happened on other shows. Don't believe everything you see.