Residents' frustration as insurance issues hold up remedial works on fire damaged apartment complex

More than five weeks after a blaze ripped through the basement car park of Academy Square in Navan, leaving 100 people homeless, remedial work has still not commenced with the insurers yet to accept liability regarding the claim.

On Monday, 7th August a fire extensively damaged the basement car park in the complex including many cars that were parked there and resulted in 34 apartments being evacuated.

While the fire did not spread to the apartments themselves, the blaze destroyed the plant room which controls the services to the building and as a result residents cannot return to their homes.

The cause of the fire was found to be arson and is still under investigation by Navan Gardai. On Sunday, a youth was arrested and interviewed about the arson and other criminal damage incidents. He was later released from custody and a file is now being prepared for the Garda National Youth Diversion Bureau.

The Meath Chronicle contacted the management company for an update on remedial works and to find out when residents can expect to return to their homes. Those still living in the complex have also lost their parking as the basement car park can no longer be used.

Alan Grehan of the Oriel Property Management Company which manages the complex could not give a definitive timeline but said realistically it was likely to be about nine months before the residents can return and before the basement car park will back in use.

He explained that work could not begin until the insurance company accepts admission of liability and that this is still awaited.

Alan said it was fairly standard for a claim of this size and scope for it to take some time and they did not anticipate that there would be any issue with the insurance and said they were fully insured.

He explained that they cannot progress with works until they get the answer from the insurance company that they have accepted liability.

"I understand there was an internal meeting last week but as yet we haven't received an update. They requested documentation, all of which has been provided. I understand that the loss adjusters have concluded their reports so it is a matter of somebody internally in the insurance company confirming that the liability is covered."

Until the insurance is ironed out, Alan said their hands are tied and they can't move forward with the works.

"We can't do anything, we can't instruct a contractor to start pricing or ordering until we have the liability confirmed.

He explained that the plant room was destroyed in the fire which controls all the services and this is a specialist build with a lead in time in excess of six months.

"It would be ideal if we could do a section of the car park but we can't. The fire alarm and emergency lighting have to be dedicated stand alone supplies and all of that was in the damaged plant room.

"We have no spare capacity anywhere else to run supply from and it has to be a permanent, we can't do anything temporary as they are life safety systems.

Once liability is confirmed, he said the next step is to quantify the loss and agree with the insurers what damage is covered and what they are paying out on and what the rates are and this will take a bit of time.

Once that is done, they will be able to go to tender to appoint a main contractor so Alan said it could still be some time before there are "boots on the site."

Owners have been kept updated by email and a meeting had been due to take place last Wednesday but was postponed when confirmation of the insurance liability had not been received. Alan said they are happy to update any tenants if they contact Oriel Property Management's offices.

The blaze left more than 30 households homeless and Meath Co Council implemented an emergency response to support and provide emergency accommodation to the households affected by the fire.

A Council spokesperson confirmed that households from 27 apartments contacted the Council’s Settlement Team who advised each family of their options and that they had provided emergency accommodation to 11 households.

Cllr Emer Tóibín said there is very little homeless accommodation available in Meath and "in the event of a disaster like this, it really exposes the fact that Meath doesn't have enough homeless accommodation".

While many of the families have found alternative accommodation, Cllr Tóibín said she understood that four to five families were still in homeless accommodation.

"Five weeks on, there are still four to five families in homeless accommodation with children and that is not ideal at all," she said.