Victoria Square apartments: Pensioner may lose everything as Belfast residents lose out on compensation claims after evacuation

Patrick McKeague was part of a group action to secure compensation for faulty construction affecting 91 apartments at Chichester Street in the Victoria Square complex after a faulty support column forced them to evacuate in 2011.

Yesterday after Mr Justice Huddleston struck out their claim for compensation in the High Court, saying it had passed the six year legal limit.

"Of course it is a huge blow," Mr McKeague said of the court ruling.

"My savings went into buying this apartment. It was so nice to be in the centre of Belfast with access to the shops and my church, St Mary's, which I attend every day.

"I never anticipated anything like this happening to me through no fault of my own.

"Obviously I try not to worry about things but of course there is an underlying stress attached to anything like this” said the retired market researcher.

He bought one of the 91 luxury apartments in 2011. However in 2019 residents were warned to evacuate due to structural worries with a key supporting column – and have been left in limbo ever since.

A group action for compensation from the builders was struck out in the High Court yesterday after Justice Huddleston said the claim had been made several years after the six year limit.

"I really enjoyed living in the centre of Belfast. It was a lovely apartment.

"So to get the news in 2019 that supporting column was defective was really quite a shock."

He was dismayed that the judge in yesterday's case focussed on the time limitation for such claims rather than the faulty columns.

"The time limit for such claims is only six years here whereas in England or Wales it is 15 or 30 years."

He put his life savings into his apartment, which cost him around £225,000 in 2011.

Patrick has been paying £320 service charges every quarter ever since, which covers formal monitoring of the supporting column.

The apartment owners say they have had to continue paying property rates, building insurance, service charges for ongoing maintenance costs and of course rising mortgage payments, despite not having access to their properties.

Mr McKeague says he was able to successfully challenge a rates demand but is not sure if the issue will arise once more.

As to whether he has lost his full £225,000, he says the answer to that question is "unknowable" at this time.

The apartment owners will now meet together to look at their options.

"If by some strange imagination the column could be repaired then we would still have our apartments.

"If that was possible we might have to fork out to do that but we will have to wait and see if it is possible."

He suggests this could cost each apartment owner £50,000 each, but it is all speculative at this time.

"At present we can't sell our apartments, we can't rent them and we can't live in them."

He is currently living in accomodation provided by his family.

In 2019 the apartment owners clubbed together to install a steel propping system around the compromised column, at a cost of £1m. Their insurance would not cover it.

Ulster Garden Villages Ltd, a charity which owns 54 of the apartments, and nearly 30 individual owners joined forces to sue the builders and architects involved in the development.

They claimed for structural defects, negligence and loss of value in a joint lawsuit estimated to be worth up to £25m.

Construction firms Farrans and Gilbert-Ash, along with architecture company Building Design Partnership, all vehemently denied any liability. The three defendants applied to have the action struck out on the grounds that it was statute barred by exceeding the six year limit under the terms of the Defective Premises (NI) Order 1975 (DPO).

Mr Justice Huddleston agreed. He also rejected the claims for negligence, finding instead that the case raised issues of “pure economic loss”.

The time limit for such claims in England and Wales was extended to 30 years after the Grenfell Tower disaster.

The barrister for the apartment owners requested the judge defer his ruling for six months in the hope that the Stormont Assembly might similarly extend the time limit in NI.

Sean Brannigan KC argued: “They are completely innocent plaintiffs, some of whom will face ruin as a result of what happened.

“One is a charity, but the other 29 are private individuals who will be left without the building they paid for… they can’t live in it and it (may have to be) demolished.”

The barrister claimed the impact on clients he described as “victims” will be profound.

Mr Justice Huddleston accepted there is “a lot of human pain” but added that “the reality is I must apply the law as it is, and it’s not for me to speculate on what the legislature will do”.

Solicitor James Turner of O’Reilly Stewart, who represented the apartment owners, called for cross-party support to extend the time limit.

“The owners of Victoria Square (apartments) are completely blameless victims in this failure to address the problems and are now victims twice over as a result of the failure of the legislature to act quickly to give homeowners in Northern Ireland the same basic protection against dangerous buildings as homeowners enjoy in England and Wales,” he said.

DUP MP Gavin Robinson and SDLP MLA Matthew O’Toole both backed his call yesterday.