It is the Celtic Tiger’s longest-running piece of unfinished business: developments built, units sold, and the common areas — the structure, grounds and halls the OMC was created to own — never actually conveyed. The MUD Act set a deadline of 30 September 2011 for existing developments. A remarkable share of the sector missed it and has been living with the consequences, transaction by transaction, ever since.
Mary Molloy Solicitors are solicitors, not accountants or tax advisers. Nothing on this page is tax, accounting or financial advice — engage your accountant on those questions, and both advisers together where matters straddle the line. Company law procedures, CRO practice and filing deadlines change frequently, and reform of the law governing owners’ management companies and charities is ongoing; confirm the current position before acting on anything here.
How the Gap Happened
Sections 4 and 5 required existing developments’ common areas to transfer to the OMC by the 2011 deadline; section 3 protects new developments by blocking unit sales before the transfer. The old stock’s compliance failed for predictable reasons: developer insolvency (the counterparty vanished into liquidation or dissolution), unfinished developments (where transfer and completion obligations tangled), and the absence of an effective sanction for simply not bothering. The result is a sector where who legally owns the common areas is, in a startling number of developments, a genuinely open question.
Living With It vs Fixing It
The Law Society’s conveyancing guidance means non-transfer doesn’t automatically freeze sales — developments trade despite it — but every transaction re-surfaces it, every purchaser’s solicitor probes it, and the OMC meanwhile manages, insures and levies charges for property it doesn’t own: workable, and structurally wrong. Fixing it is a title project: find where the title sits (live developer, liquidation, dissolved-and-vested); identify who can convey — liquidator engagement, restoration of a dissolved developer company where that unlocks the deed, or the MUD Act’s own machinery, with section 24 reaching even insolvent counterparties on Lee Towers’ terms (orders yes; money, unsecured-creditor odds); and land the transfer in a functioning OMC — restored first if needed via the 6-year window, governed properly so it can hold what it receives.
Why Now
Three clocks favour acting: the evidence trail (developer principals, solicitors’ files and institutional memory all age); the remediation era (apartment defect schemes run through OMCs, and a development organised enough to fix its title is organised enough to claim — our construction practice handles that side); and the reform horizon — incoming OMC regulation will not look kindly on foundational questions left open (what’s coming). The development that starts the project this year finishes the explanation era for good.
Common Areas Still in a Ghost's Name?
Bring whatever title documents exist. One call establishes where the areas legally sit and the realistic route to landing them in the OMC.
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About the Author
Richard O’Shea, Solicitor practises with Mary Molloy Solicitors (established 1981), advising company directors, shareholders, family businesses, owners’ management companies, clubs and charities across Ireland. Richard holds a Diploma in Mediation from the Law Society of Ireland — central to this work, where shareholder, family-company and apartment-block disputes are relationship disputes first, and where the MUD Act itself empowers the Circuit Court to direct parties to mediation. Contact Richard on 01 5827148 or richardoshea@marymolloysolicitors.com.
This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. Every farm and family situation is different, and you should obtain advice on your own circumstances before acting. In contentious business, a solicitor may not calculate fees or other charges as a percentage or proportion of any award or settlement.