Rathmolyon home buyer refusing to pay extra €60k to developer says she will "fight until bitter end"

A home buyer who is refusing to pay a developer an extra €60,000 to finish building her house in a new Rathmolyon estate says she is “prepared to fight until until the bitter end."

The woman who asked not to be named is one of a dozen buyers who entered into contracts with the developer but have since been asked to pay the extra fee on top of the agreed sale price of €275,000 due to the project running into financial difficulties.

Buyers of ‘Ring Fort’ a development by Meathamatics Ltd consisting of 16 three- and four-bedroom semi-detached homes in Rathmolyon signed contracts and paid thousands in deposits, some more than three years ago but are now in deadlock with the developer who says an additional injection of cash is needed or the project won’t be completed.

Last week buyers received a letter stating that the development had “run into significant difficulty” due to “spiralling costs"and proposed a meeting to see if a “mutually beneficial” solution could be found for all parties.

A number of meetings between solicitors acting for the buyers and the developer have taken place over the past two days at a hotel in Dublin but one buyer says she will not be “put over a barrel."

"A couple of buyers did go with their solicitors but I refused the meeting and asked my solicitor not to attend,” she said. "They asked if I would attend by myself and I said no if they have proposals to put them in writing,” she added.

"It was put in the letter that there was going to be some sort of negotiation, there was no negotiating at those meetings, it was pay us this money or we are not going to finish your house.”

The local woman believes €60,000 is an excessive figure to ask from each buyer.

"If you calculate the 60k that is being demanded from each house, it is nearly 1M euro and the figure that was given for completion of the estate to a local representative was €480,000. How is the figure of €60,000 being calculated?

"I’m prepared to fight them until the bitter end. If they are allowed get away with this, what will stop other developers doing the same?”

Another buyer said she and her partner were “distraught”after the meeting.

"The tone in which the demand was delivered was so derogatory," she said.They had the cheek to tell us “just go back to your lender and borrow more”.

"They know that they are in effect, pricing people out of their mortgages. Nobody has that kind of liquidity, certainly not a young family or couple.

"Even if people did have that money to hand over - who’s to say we wouldn’t be in this exact scenario in six months time again?”

The developer being unwilling to put their request in writing is a red flag as this buyer explains:

"They won’t put it in writing what they are asking - they told us to email them our offer and they would draw up new contracts. We asked for an itemised listing of the costs of extra works they cited - they won’t provide it."

The group was initially told the first phase of the construction for the houses bought off the plans would be completed in early 2022 with the second phase due to be finished in later the same year. Further delays pushed the deadline back to 2023 and almost one year after last speaking out about the situation, they are no closer to being home owners.

Earlier this week exasperated buyers told of how the hold up in completing the housing estate had left them in limbo after work was brought to a halt and the site was locked up a number of weeks ago.

One buyer paid a €5,000 holding deposit in May 2021 for a three-bedroom home off the plans costing €275,000.

“We are stuck in this limbo, it is a living nightmare,” she said.

“Your whole life is put on hold waiting for this and you can’t move forward.

“There are risks to mortgages not proceeding, loan offers expire after six months, you go through the process again, interest rates have shot up."

“We signed contracts, we handed over deposits, everything was done in good faith,” said another buyer. “As recently as December we got a letter to say we’d be in our house in March.

“ This isn’t a bad news story anymore this is our lives, this is our future, this is impacting every waking moment,” she added.

A woman who was forced to pull out of the sale with her partner after a “horrendous” two years says it has left her mental health in tatters.

“It has been devastating for the whole family, we thought we had found our forever home,” she said. “I haven’t stopped crying but we felt we could no longer go on living this nightmare."

The mum-of-two says she couldn’t take the risk of missing another house that came up for sale within her budget.

“We had to weigh it up and say do we sit back and fight this but we don’t have time on our side but unfortunately we had to make the decision.

“I don’t know if there is going to be another house that will come up within our budget, we are left in no man’s land.”

A spokesperson for Meathamatics Ltd said:

“The company is suffering a significant financial situation due to matters outside of its control - including significant delays and spiralling costs.

“We are in discussions with all parties to find reasonable solutions.”

Meath Co Council has been also been contacted for comment.