Defective home group set for crunch briefing in Dublin

The Banking and Insurance Focus Group, set up by affected homeowners in Donegal affected by defective blocks, will be in the capital for the second meeting of a dedicated oversight committee to examine the mortgageability of remediated properties under the Government Defective Block Redress Scheme.

This issue relates to restoring the ability of a homeowner to switch mortage provider, to access a top-up or sell their home in future for a mortgage-backed price.

They refer to a statement issued by the Banking and Payments Federation of Ireland (BPFI) last December about the ability of banks to lend on future properties remediated under the scheme.

The banking federation indicated its members would be willing to lend on remediated properties provided they have the proper sign-off and certification by engineers.

However, Engineers Ireland, in a submission to the Working Group on the Defective Blocks Grant Scheme in September 2021, said they had concerns about IS465, the industry standard, for assessing concrete blocks containing certain deleterious material.

In a statement ahead of the meeting this week, the BIFG noted: "They stated that their members were being asked to make recommendations on remedial works, where 'the mechanism for degradation of concrete blocks requires further research' and they refer to concerns about the presence of pyrrhotite being present in concrete blocks in Co. Donegal.

"Their submission referred to the value placed by engineers on their professional indemnity cover and a perception that the scheme could give rise to claims arising from failure of the scheme to properly address the root cause of our problem.

"In conclusion, the issue of restoring mortgageability was not given proper consideration when this scheme was drafted. We expect clarity at [this Wednesday's] meeting on what constitutes structural reliability and therefore restores mortgageability. No homeowners should be forced to accept a 'remedy' that does not restore full mortgage condition."

The group says it expects a 'definite position to be given in relation to the ability of engineers to provide the full unambiguous certification that the banking sector have rightly called for'.

Defective concrete blocks are failing ‘because of pyrrhotite and not mica’