THE Multi Unit Developments Bill reached it’s second stage at the Dail yesterday and it remains to be seen whether it will be passed before the summer break or if it’ll be left until the Dail resumes at the end of September. The sooner it’s enshrined in law, the better in our view as not a week goes by when we don’t hear a tale of woe from a resident who is battling a management agent or a developer. The legislation itself has given hope to thousands of frustrated property owners.

A Leitrim apartment owner who calls himself “a victim of a developer who has not delivered on what was promised initially” emailed to say the apartment block he lives in “is basically unfinished although the developer claims it is. No proper management company has been set up, the developer still retains at least a quarter of the apartments and the place is becoming a mess despite being over six years old. We do not have recourse to top legal advice and feel we are just being thrown in with investors and speculators.” But will the Multi-Unit bill ultimately come riding to the rescue ? One of the most welcome provisions of the new Bill relates to the transfer of common areas (such as lobbies, lifts, corridors and roof gardens) in apartment complexes from the developer to the unit owners.

In recent years, the norm is for builders to hang on to common areas until the last unit in the development is sold, meaning the owners can’t take control of the property management company.

The Bill says that developers will have to transfer common areas to the management company before any apartment is sold. With existing complexes where the common areas have not been completed, or where a completed complex has not been transferred to the property management company, the Bill specifies that they must be transferred within six months of the legislation.It also provides for dispute resolution mechanisms in new and existing complexes. Watch this space.