Pádraic McCormack (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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Question 585: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government his plans to introduce the necessary legislation or regulation to eliminate the necessity for management companies in new housing estates which is putting a severe burden on buyers purchasing houses in new housing estates particularly for first-time buyers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35275/05]

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The Law Reform Commission working group is currently examining a range of legal issues relating to management of multi-unit structures. The Government will consider any recommendations the final report makes including the necessity for new legislation in this area.

Management companies operate at present for the majority of apartment developments, for certain other higher density developments — often with a mix of designs, and rarely for a very small number of standard housing developments. Generally speaking, the role of management companies is to maintain the common property, including buildings, sewers, water pipes, public lighting, roads and footpaths contained within the boundaries of the overall property.

Once housing developments are taken in charge, it is the local authority's responsibility to maintain public infrastructure such as roads, footpaths, sewers, water mains and public lighting. The existence of a management company should not override the legal obligation on developers to complete estates, and, where required by the planning permission, to maintain estates until they are taken in charge.

Section 34 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 introduced a number of provisions designed to ensure that all housing estates were finished as soon as possible, maintained to a satisfactory standard for the benefit of the people living in them and taken in charge by local authorities. In addition, section 34 recognised the common practice of establishing management companies, control of which is transferred to the owners of the housing units, to maintain or manage residential developments.

These new provisions of planning legislation are framework ones and individual planning authorities must make their own judgment, based on local circumstances and policies, about how and to what extent to use them in particular cases. My Department has asked planning authorities for a report on their policies in relation to the attachment of conditions relating to management companies to planning permissions for various types of residential developments.