Councillors don’t have right to tell local authority to buy house
COUNCILLORS do not have the right to instruct the housing department of Wexford County Council to withdraw the proposed sale of a house at 16 Greenore Park, Rosslare Harbour in order to buy the property and renovate it for social housing instead.
The house was valued at €55,000 and a purchaser offered to buy it for €77,000. The estimated cost of the repairs required to make it available for social housing, is approximately €55,000.
Housing executive Niall McCabe told Cllr Ger Carthy that there is a liability of €100,000 on the house and to make it transparent, the local authority should adopt the same approach as a bank and should dispose of its own interest in it. Mr McCabe said the council would get a grant of €5,000 for the repairs, leaving it to find a balance of €50,000.
‘As far as I’m concerned, it is a perfectly good house in the centre of Rosslare Harbour that can be repaired for €55,000. Many people living in the area are not happy about the council selling this house. That house should not be sold and that is what I’m proposing’, he said. Cllr Lisa McDonald said she couldn’t understand why the Council couldn’t just put in a bid for €80,000.
Mr McCabe said it was up for sale at auction and the highest bid was €77,000 and he didn’t think the local authority could go and outbid that.
Cllr Carthy re-iterated his proposal that Wexford County Council purchase the house and this was seconded by Cllr David Hynes. They were informed by deputy chief executive Tony Larkin that a decision to purchase a house is a matter for the Director of Housing not the members who only have the power to make a suggestion, not give a direction.
‘Okay then, I would suggest to the director of housing that he purchase this house’, said Cllr Carthy, to which Mr McCabe replied:’I will look into the suggestion’.