Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Ellis for raising this important matter. As he may be aware, the Multi-Unit Developments Act 2011 was enacted with the primary purposes of reforming the law relating to the ownership and management of common areas of multi-unit developments and facilitating the fair, efficient and effective management of owners' management companies. These are companies registered under the Companies Acts, the members of which are the owners of residential units within the development, which are established for the purposes of ownership and management of such common areas.

A number of obligations are set out in the Act which include, but are not limited to, the following. An OMC must hold annual meetings and set annual service charges to cover the costs of maintenance, insurance and repair of common areas under its control and of the provision of common services to unit owners. An OMC must establish a sinking fund and it can also develop house rules for the operation and maintenance of the multi-unit development. This is not something that people can do on their own. The OMC develops the rules, to be agreed. The formulation of rules for private estates by management companies is governed by section 23 of the Multi-Unit Developments Act 2011. The OMC has ultimate responsibility for setting and enforcing house rules.

Section 23 allows an OMC to make house rules relating to the effective operation and maintenance of the development as respects the development or part of the development. These house rules are binding on unit owners, tenants of unit owners, and servants, agents and licensees of those tenants or unit owners. The rules are required to be consistent with the objective of advancing the quiet and peaceful enjoyment of the property by the unit owners and the occupiers, and the objective of the fair and equitable balancing of the rights and obligations of the occupiers and the unit owners.

Apart from the rules made by the OMC before the completion of the sale of the first unit in the relevant part of the development, house rules shall not be made or amended unless the rules have first been considered and approved by a meeting of the unit owners in the part of the development concerned. The Act requires notice of that meeting to be given to each unit owner not less than 21 days prior to the meeting and that the notice should be accompanied by a draft of the proposed rules. Once approved, the rules must be furnished to each unit, and each unit owner, by the OMC. The Act also provides that observance of the house rules by all those occupying the property, including their licensees, servants or agents, shall be a term in every letting of a unit in a multi-unit development.

The Minister would like to point out that there is also robust legislation providing for regulation of companies that provide property managementservices. Such companies are subject to a detailed legislative framework of licensing, regulation, monitoring and enforcement under the Property Services (Regulation) Act 2011. That Act also established the Property Services Regulatory Authority, PSRA, a statutory regulatory body specifically tasked with responsibility for licensing and regulating property services providers including auctioneers, estate agents, letting agents and property management agents.

The PSRA is empowered to investigate complaints of improper conduct made against licensed property services providers and to launch investigations on its own initiative for the purpose of ensuring compliance by property services providers with their statutory obligations. Where the PSRA makes a finding of improper conduct by a property service provider, it can impose a range of sanctions from issuing a reprimand, warning, caution or advice, to suspending or revoking a licence or directing the licensee to pay a financial penalty.

In most circumstances, a property management company is normally acting as an agent for the owner of the property or, in the case of a multi-unit development, as an agent for the OMC.

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