Need to protect home buyers
Sure it will be expensive. More importantly, it will be where we intend to reside and to rear our families. Given the financial implications and the potential impact on our lives, it is not a matter we treat lightly.
We try to get the best deal in a place that will suit us and our growing families. We employ surveyors or engineers to check the property. The banks insist on a report on the property from an engineering professional.
When we get the necessary report we are assured what we are getting is what we paid for. We are assured since there are so many professional people involved in the construction of a house or an apartment block, from country or city council officials and engineering consultants to solicitors, architects, building engineers, surveyors and bank checks what we are buying complies with the necessary codes and the necessary legislation.
We are clearly being fooled as a report this week again highlighted another case where an apartment block complex was found to have fire safety and structural deficiencies.
Again it’s the new owners who get caught for the cost of the remedial work. Such incidents, so far, primarily in the Dublin area, are so prevalent there is something seriously wrong with a system where no-one is responsible.
It’s not as if Government does not know of these issues. It is all simply a scandal. Where are the customers’ rights?
Under the Sale of Goods and Supply of Services Acts a purchaser is entitled to expect certain conditions are fulfilled. Specifically, the product or service must be of merchantable quality; it must be fit for purpose; and the the buyer must not be misled.
Yet, we know from the many times we’ve read about defective houses and apartment blocks these rights appear not to really or fully exist for those buying a house or an apartment.
It is also clear construction and engineering professionals who are paid well should properly inspect and make sure all of the properties are up to standard.
