Tens of millions of euro a year are paid to apartment block owner management companies which operate in “the wild west of governance and financial regulation”, TDs and Senators have been told.
Brian O’Gorman, chief executive of housing agency Clúid, said there were “owners’ management companies where voluntary directors were paying themselves large amounts of money”. He said many of them were facing significant financial and governance challenges. “We need a regulator to instil good practice,” he said.
Mr Maher said items such as insurance, energy and waste costs were often paid out of the sinking funds. He said coming up to 25 years after the Celtic Tiger building boom the question was “When the pumps and the roof and the lifts need to be replaced, would the money be there?” A number of speakers from the floor, many of whom were individual apartment owners, spoke of a lack of transparency in management company finances.