Any advice about private legal action against developer ?

Appreciate all the advice, guys. Thanks.

I think we'll try to pressure the council in various ways ...
o ask CoCo to take-in-charge, with regard to Gormleys latest planning guidelines
o Get a costing for the outstanding works
o Review the planning details
o try to find out what has happened to the bond, and try to get hold of it to pay for completion of works.
o Use Lobbying and publicity !

Hopefully the council might then start pressuring the developer to take the heat off themselves.

-Don't forget to complain to ombudsman, they frequently get stuck into the manner in which Local PLanning Authorities deal with planning enforcement complaints.

-Don't accept enforcement issues as reason why Council can't take in charge. I know of estates (known as legacy estates) where there have been numerous enforcment issues, bond has expired and been returned to developer and because of pressure from residents, Council has taken estate in charge and completed works.

- Council aren't impotent, although it's at their discretion to take to court (usually district) if it's clear that a breach of planning law has taken place, if they can present evidence to the court of the breach, if the developer hasn't complied with enforcement notice, if developer has been uncooperative etc then no good reason not to prosecute.

Still think that the local authority has a major part to play in this. It is in their interest to ensure the developer completes the estate rather than they taking it in charge. An enforcement notice, if heard by the district court, has to be complied with. If not, then pressure should be put on the local authority by public representatives rather than residents going to the cost of fighting a legal battle which wasn't their making.

There are lots of routes - all time consuming though - I agree with MF1 - it's very draining and we're trying not to let it consume our Residents Association. I'd nearly pay double the fee not to have to deal with any of it But someone has to and having a poor agent that does very little for a lot of money in many developments I know is annoying. And then there's the people who won't pay the fees - management fees, gardening fees, anything really - they have been issued solicitors letters - I'm thankful the agent deals with this part - even though they do it poorly as with everything else. I doubt you would elicit much money from the community to take a court case - we've an active community thanks to some very active residents with a lot of energy.

We are experiencing similiar issues and the council don't even respond to emails at all - 3 emails so far. Dept. of Enviro & Local Government suggested going to the County Manager if you don't get a response. Who has the time to be writing letters and phoning the council if they can't reply to a simple email or route it to the correct person.

The Enforcement Officers are useless - again they don't even reply to emails. And we are just looking for the draft taking in charge policy. The Minister for DoeLG said in correspondence that all they would be doing is asking each council if it had the draft policy in place and giving them a slap on the wrist if not. As there is no legislation in the area there's not much that can be done.

I'm not sure what remit the Ombudsman has but this is one of the easier routes that we'll be looking at.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2008/0711/1215677263260.html

We will approach the Ombudsman in relation to the council not taking the estate in charge in a reasonable amount of time i.e. less than a decade. There's estates in the area that have not been taken in charge in this time.

In relation to the developer bonds - this is interesting to hear they are moving the bond onto another development. I wouldn't be surprised. I've heard from engineers that the bond is often not half enough to carry out remedial work. Have a look a Monaghan County Council's taking in charge policy - you can see the high standard that's required: www.monaghan.ie/websitev2/download/doc/waterservices/2007/TakinginChargePolicy.doc

Our estate is no where near this. The developers shouldn't be allowed to start a new phase without the first phases being complete to taking in charge standard.

I'm looking forward to next year's local elections already. Local councillors didn't even know there were management companies in the county at recent meetings we've attended.

My friend found himself in a similar situation with a developer that was unwilling to finish their estate, the developer also seemed to have friends in high places (seen drinking with the officials from the local planning dept most lunchtimes in a local pub, well known FF supporter), enforcement notices went ignored, as did correspondance and requests for meetings etc, they were advised against taking it through the courts because of the costs involved, and were also advised that the 'best thing' to do would be to forget it and just pay for the outstanding work themselves.
In the end what they did was produce a leaflet (more like a booklet really) outlining all their problems and the lack of response etc etc, and the every weekend the RA would 'swamp ' the developers showhouses on other developments and pass them to potential buyers and warn anyone interested in buying one of his houses what problems they were likely to encounter. They would cram themselves into the the houses making it difficult for potential buyers to have a look round. Whilst in there they would talk loudly amongst themselves about how small the rooms/gardens were, how badly finished the buildings seemed to be, how thin the walls were etc etc. It only took about four weeks before he sat down with the RA and promised to deal with the outstanding issues....

ASFKAP said:

the developer also seemed to have friends in high places (seen drinking with the officials from the local planning dept most lunchtimes in a local pub, well known FF supporter),

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There's a great reason to start photographing the developer and the officials and publish the photos on the web each day - there should be no comment with the photos other than a list of the names involved, but no comment is necessary.

ASFKAP said:

My friend found himself in a similar situation with a developer that was unwilling to finish their estate, the developer also seemed to have friends in high places (seen drinking with the officials from the local planning dept most lunchtimes in a local pub, well known FF supporter), enforcement notices went ignored, as did correspondance and requests for meetings etc, they were advised against taking it through the courts because of the costs involved, and were also advised that the 'best thing' to do would be to forget it and just pay for the outstanding work themselves.
In the end what they did was produce a leaflet (more like a booklet really) outlining all their problems and the lack of response etc etc, and the every weekend the RA would 'swamp ' the developers showhouses on other developments and pass them to potential buyers and warn anyone interested in buying one of his houses what problems they were likely to encounter. They would cram themselves into the the houses making it difficult for potential buyers to have a look round. Whilst in there they would talk loudly amongst themselves about how small the rooms/gardens were, how badly finished the buildings seemed to be, how thin the walls were etc etc. It only took about four weeks before he sat down with the RA and promised to deal with the outstanding issues....

Click to expand...

Interesting - have thought about this but wondering what the legal implications are? In current climate I don't think there are many people viewing houses but they'll won't sell houses in future phases unless they finish the estate.

But what is finishing the estate? We need it finished to the standard required by the council - and the council don't seem willing to even give us information in relation to their TIC policy or even get the process started.

Make a Freedom of Information request to the council to obtain their TIC policy and procedures.