Couple Ordered to Demolish House - any update?

Which part of my post is "way off the mark"?

It is an awful waste but to reward the couple that broke the law would set a very unwelcome and dangerous precedent.

I presume when building without planning ther is no way to get a mortgage etc?

Give them a deal, take in x number of Ukrainian refugees for 2-3 years and you get your permission. Oh, and provide them with a 7 passenger car.

Can i just ask why was planing permission refused in 2006? Did they really just build the house then having been refused? Bizarre

From the article, I think it says they were refused at one site because it was unsuitable as a site.

Then they were refused at the next site as they didn't have sufficient interest in it.

Then they were refused at a third site because the land had been sterilised (and maybe also it was against the development plan i.e. preventing spill over).

It appears they stuck 2 fingers up to everyone else and built on the third location anyway

There will be a small number of cases where the 7 year rule doesn't apply, but those will technically be for a "rebuild". For example where there is an old derelict house or even the shell of a house.

But other than that, for a new build as a local needs exception, as you say, the condition lies with the person applying (or can be fulfilled by a close family member). There is an exception insofar that banks can repossess the property within the 7 years.

Shame to knock it down, but I'm not sure of the reason planning was refused. If it is a very serious breach of health and safety, dangerous access or whatever then yes it should be knocked. However if the Council can sort out access and any other issues, then it should not be knocked, but re purposed for some good use by the community.

That would mean that the site value would have to be paid to the owners I suppose.

I'm an Irish citizen.

The state foists ugly buildings on the community with utter impunity. If ugliness were a criteria for eradicating a building this country would be out of hospitals and a lot more besides. With the housing crisis at the moment, aesthetics should be the least of anyones concerns. The stupid perniciousness being advocated is unreal - cutting off your nose to spite your face. Demolishing a habitable building in the current accommodation crisis does no one any good and is bent.

As I said, offer the owners a deal, do some societal good and we'll cut a deal. This is a common idea enshrined in the legal system as community service.

The thing here is that if Meath CC don't look to enforce the rules here in totality it might well open the floodgates for others to blast ahead with similar developments. They may not want to proceed with a demolition but it's hard to see what other choice they have. No winners really but at the end of the day this family built a house 3 or 4 times the size of your average irish house. It's amazing really that it's still there 20 years later. It's a trophy house make no mistake about it. A throwback to Celtic Tiger indulgence. I really do think that if they'd have built a 4 bed bungalow they would have gotten retention and the headache for themselves and the council would be long over. Then they might have got further permission for extensions etc. On the face of it you'd have to agree that this was a big 2 fingers to everyone. I know that the family are suffering through a nightmare but they are prolonging it themselves now with silly suggestions of reducing the size etc. Pleading the local officials and trying to gain support from the public through the media. As I said if it were a modest dwelling and I truly believed they were at their wits end trying to build a house for their family I'd be much more sympathetic.

You can't just decide you want to live somewhere and knock up a house. That's not the way it works.

They wouldn’t be rewarded, they should have the house confiscated and pay them the value of the land only.

Why should taxpayers money be used to pay this couple for the value of the site? This makes zero sense.

They should be made to knock the house at their expense and retain ownership of the site they chose to purchase.

State should take ownership of the house, let them rent it back