Mica-affected Council house sold to sitting tenant

Donegal County Council sold a sitting tenant in Inishowen a home they suspect contains mica, Inish Times can reveal.

The former tenant, who wished to remain anonymous, purchased the house they had lived in for 15 years under the Incremental Purchase Scheme, which replaced the Tenant Purchase Scheme.

The former tenant said they could not afford the estimated €7,000 necessary to engage an engineer and have their home tested for mica.

They are also excluded from the current Defective Concrete Blocks Grant Scheme because the house was purchased after the eligibility cut-off date of January 31, 2020, when SI 25 was signed into law.

There is, however, a grey area in the scheme around older homes.

If a house was built after January 31, 2020, it is definitely excluded but there is a question mark around whether or not a home owner is eligible for admission to the scheme if their house was built in 2006, for example, but bought out in March 2020.

The homeowner said: “The whole process of buying the house took a year. Before I bought it, I had no idea the house contained mica. The Council did not tell me there was a possibility of mica.

“I did not get a survey done because I thought the Council would not allow it. While I was a tenant, if I had wanted to so much as put a back boiler into my house, I would have had to inform the Council and say, 'I am touching that wall'. Because I did not own the house, I thought I could not drill the walls to take samples. I thought the Council would have got the house tested on their behalf. I assume the Council knew there was mica in the whole development.

“Less than a year after I bought the house, a member of my family was visiting and they said to me they thought I had mica. They noticed cracking on the outside of the house. I rang the Council and said, 'What is happening here? My house has mica and I have just bought it,'” they said.

Two contractors have confirmed to the homeowner the former Council house looks as if it contains mica.

The homeowner added: “When I rang the Council I was passed form one person to another. I spoke to so many different people and every one of them told me someone would ring me back. No-one ever rang me back or contacted me, not once. I was told an engineer would talk to me but not one person in the Council has ever got back to me.

“I emailed the Council, 'Why did you slip up and sell me a house which contained mica?' No-one ever emailed me back. No-one rang back when I rang. I have had no communication from the Council at all.

“I had the additional worry of my home insurance being up in October past. I was unsure what to do, so I told the company. They asked me if the house had been tested. I said, 'No because I can't afford to get it tested but it has mica'. But they said it needed tested.

“I have now noticed cracks down along the bottom exterior wall of my house. Other houses in the estate have similar cracks. Originally, the whole estate was social housing. I feel safe enough in the house. It is not as bad as some of the others in Inishowen I have seen on social media. I think mine is at the early stages. I have one wee wee hairline crack inside, in the downstairs toilet but I don't have any water getting into the house,” they said.

The homeowner said they did not know what the way forward was.

“How could the Council do that to someone? All I wanted was for the Council to fix my house. That is all I wanted but no-one will speak to me or do anything. I cannot afford to fix it on my own and I love the house and the area I live in.

“Over the years, I was an extremely good tenant. Any changes I wanted to make to the house, even so much as putting a shed out the back, I would have had to write to the Council and inform them. I was never, ever behind with my rent.

“I just thought somebody would have contacted me when I contacted them and said, 'There was a slip up there,” said the homeowner.

Donegal Live asked Donegal County Council a number of questions about the estate in question, how many social homes it contained and how many had been tested for mica and when?

The Council was also asked how many of the homes had been sold to sitting tenants and whether or not the tenants were informed by Council their house might have mica prior to these purchases?

In a statement, Donegal County Council said there were 27 occupied social houses in the estate in question.

It added: “No testing [mica] has been carried out in this estate to date. Three of the houses have been purchased.”
In relation to informing tenants of the existence of mica, the Council referred to its earlier answer that no testing had been carried out on the estate in question to date.