The Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement is seeking contributions from interested bodies on a draft document on the governance of property management companies.
Mr Paul Appleby, Director of Corporate Enforcement
Ahead of the publication of the draft guidance document this morning, Mr Paul Appleby, Director of Corporate Enforcement, said the governance of apartment management companies has been a "frequent source of complaint" to his office in recent years.
He said the resale value of apartments suffers if management companies do not maintain the property to "a high standard".
Mr Appleby said he has recieved 19 complaints so far this year, up from 11 in 2005. The most common complaints were how money collected for service charges was spent; lack of discussion between management and residents and failure of firms to file annual returns.
Mr Appleby appealed to members of management companies to involve themselves more in company operations and supervision.
"Every apartment owner has made a substantial investment, and the future return on that investment is critically dependent on how well the management company maintains the complex as a whole," he said.
"Some apartment owners are unaware of the existence of a management company within their development, while others have an inadequate understanding of its proper role and of the part which they themselves can play in contributing to its success.
"Similarly, the directors of management companies are frequently ill-informed of the tasks which must be discharged by an effective management company," he said.
The draft guidance document should go some way towards educating directors and members of management companies on how the "governance vacuum" can be successfully overcome, he said.
The ODCE is seeking public comment on the draft guidance by the end of March. Mr Appleby's office will publish a formal Governance Handbook for Management Companies later in 2007.
Meanwhile, a company featured in last night's RTE Prime Time Investigatesprogramme, has issued a statement addressing an alleged breach of Data Protection laws.
The programme highlighted allegations of so-called ghost bidding in the auctioneering business where bids are manufactured to get a higher price for a property.
A statement issued this afternoon by Simply Mortgages in response to the Prime Time programme acknowledges that an employee did breach data protection laws but "strongly" rejected any implication that it was company policy to disregard these laws.
The statement said the breach "was a mistake on the part of our employee who did not realise the use which could potentially be made of the information which he provided to the person who had referred the customer to him."
The company listed a number of measures it said it had taken to ensure no such breach could be repeated and said it would "co-operate fully with the regulators to make sure that no similar mistake can occur again."