Homeowners short-changed: Someone must be responsible

For the great majority of us, a home is the largest investment we will make. It represents a life of work, and some achievement too.

Buying a home is a reasonably complex process with all sorts of limits and regulations, but most of all someone who wants to buy a home must satisfy a lender they are capable of repaying any money borrowed. What a pity such rigid scrutiny does not apply right across the process.

Once those concerns are resolved, most of us are happy to sign on the line, maybe agreeing to make repayments over 30 years.

This is a tacit expression of hope, no matter how misplaced, that everyone along the planning-to-building chain has done their job and that building regulations have been observed. Buying a house, especially a newly built one, is an expression, no matter how naive, of trust in the system.

Yesterday’s reports that South Dublin apartment owners face a bill of up to €30m to resolve water and fire safety issues at South Quarter in Sandyford confirms again that this is not always the case.

South Quarter residents join a long list of homebuyers short-changed by our regulatory system or builders. That they are now liable for the shortcomings of others highlights the corruption at the heart of our system.

In previous instances, the public purse helped resolve these issues but would it not be better to properly supervise these buildings as they are being built? If someone was, as must be assumed, then a very different set of questions apply.