A couple who employed a builder to build an extension to the back of their Dublin city home but ended up with "a mess" that will have to be knocked down were yesterday awarded €67,500 in the High Court.
Mr Justice Michael Peart said the building of the one-storey extension at the home of Gavin and Michelle Collins, Jamestown Avenue, Inchicore, Dublin, has been a disaster and would have to pulled down and started again.
Apart from having to rewire the house there was, the judge said, severe foul and noxious odours throughout as a result of a faulty sewage installation. The toilets had been blocked.
Pooling of water
Mr Justice Peart said the fall of the roof was too shallow and there was pooling of water on it. The house was now also very draughty.
The judge said a planning and design consultant’s report set out “an alarming number of faults” in the construction of the extension, including that the wrong size block was used on a party wall and did not comply with building regulations.
The case was before Mr Justice Peart for assessment of damages only after judgment was obtained against David Core, Chapelwood, Kilmuckridge, Co Wexford, trading as A1 Property Maintenance two years ago in the High Court.
Mr and Mrs Collins had agreed a price of just under €30,000 for the one-storey extension which was to include a larger kitchen, a utility room and a downstairs bathroom.
The rebuild now, the High Court heard, could be in the region of €74,800.
“Mr and Mrs Collins have been left with a mess. They wanted a simple extension to the back of their house and due to bad workmanship by the defendant they have been left with one which will have to be substantially taken down and recommenced in a proper manner. They cannot afford to do this,” Mr Justice Peart said.
He said Mr Core defended himself and claimed Mr and Mrs Collins should have been held partly responsible for the problems as they caused some delay at the beginning of the project as they waited for a mortgage drawdown. This, Mr Core claimed, put additional pressure on him to finish the job by Christmas.
Economic climate
Mr Justice Peart said he suspected that whatever the amount of the damages award Mr Core would have difficulties in satisfying it, particularly in the current economic climate and the severe downturn in the building trade.
“This is clearly a job Mr Core ought never to have taken on, especially if he considered that the time available was insufficient to do the work properly or if the price at which Mr and Mrs Collins wanted to get the work done was unrealistic.”
The couple had bought out their local authority home in 2005. Mr Core was recommended by a neighbour of Mrs Collins’s mother.