Family Board Games

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Cathedral Court, Dublin 8 (above) a development by Sherbourgh Enterprises owned by members of the O’Callaghan hotel family.

This morning.

The Irish Times revealed recently that Sherborough Enterprises, controlled by members of the family that owns the O’Callaghan hotel group, expects apartment owners at Cathedral Court in Dublin 8 to pay more than €5,000 each to repair building defects in an apartment block that it built and still partly owns.

Niamh Towey, in The Irish Times, reports:

The developer of a Dublin 8 apartment block with serious building defects has gained control of the board of the block’s owners’ management company (OMC).

…Three members of the O’Callaghan family – Noel, Paul and Charles O’Callaghan – are now on the board after a vote was held at an EGM last week.

Of the four private owners who put their names forward to join the board, two were elected.

Cearbhall Beggan, a private owner who had been on the board alongside Paul O’Callaghan for the last number of years, resigned in protest before the vote took place.

Developer gains control of board of defective Dublin 8 apartment block (Niamh Towey, The Irish Times)

Pic: Google Maps

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6 thoughts on “Family Board Games

    1. Stephen

      A lot of owners in apartment blocks don’t take as active a role in management company issues as they should.
      Probably more so landlords but even owner occupiers can be lazy.

    2. postmanpat

      Owner of apartments really have to engage in the AGM’s. Its far too easy for one lone scumbag to clock up proxy votes. It happened in a place I used to live. One fella who owned 2 apartments and was renting them out got 5 extra proxy votes from Durkan New Homes just by calling them up. Durkan built the estate and ran away from responsibilities as soon as it was legally possible for them to do so ,but they still owned 5 properties and was renting them out and couldn’t give a toss about AGMS. So he had 7 votes total. When the new management agent we hired was making a balls of everything for 3 years in a row and later caught illegally lending money from one estates accounts to another estate that they managed , we wanted to sack them . But the fella who had 7 votes had guaranteed himself a place onto the board and worse tried to outvote the two owner occupier girls on the board who were doing their best to manage the situation and were doing the work of the management agents for free. This fella had been making secret side deals with the current criminal management agent (Global Property Management) to keep them hired on for another year. I assume they in return would have given him a kickback on the sly to cancel out his annual management fees. Only by a lot of shouting and cursing by me where I basically called him and his wife snakes and got the room to turn on him during a special general meeting was he shamed into stepping down from his board seat (which he held for just 2 minutes). Luckily we managed to sack GPM (who were robbing us) and later a judgement was made against them and they got nothing for all the bills they were charging us for , but it all could have gone the other way. Owner occupiers absolutely have to get to these meeting and raise hell if they have to. But really the best thing you can do is never buy an apartment in the first place. Its far too stressful.

      1. Colm

        They probably “gifted” his management fees back in the form of a holiday voucher. He pay the fees and then finds a voucher for that amount landing into him later. Otherwise you see his service charge was missing on the accounts.

        This a favourite tactic of crooked management agents.

  1. Cian

    I think I read somewhere that the O’Callaghans owned a load of these apartments themselves. Anyone remember that?

  2. Chris

    Im on the board of directors for my apartment complex- two years ago it was just me and one other owner so we both became directors- this year there was just 3 and one of them is a new owner. No one else bothers- two thirds of the owners and landlords and everyone else is broadly happy with how things are run by our management company. I will always go though as it’s too easy to let things slip.

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