A chara, – Some are encouraging older people to vacate family-sized homes. The single biggest disincentive I can see is the lack of trust in the building industry and its system of standards, and redress where these are not met.
We all know of housing with structural problems associated with self-certification.
If you have a house that has stood the test of time, would you really want, in your later years, to move to a house which brings the risk of a poor-quality build, and the risk that you may need to pursue various contractors through the courts?
How many of the companies that built shoddy housing during our last housing boom are still in existence and solvent, even if someone has the resources and strength to take them to court?
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I suggest a system of legal certainty and guarantee about standards for house-buyers of all ages.
Could we have a building standards agency and a legal framework with the resources and powers to ensure that standards will be met, that individual house-owners will not have to pursue claims through the courts, and that redress will not disappear with the next insolvency? – Yours, etc,
SEAN KINSELLA,
Dublin 14.