A man claims he and his wife had to abandon their beautiful new home in Dublin’s Ballsbridge because of noise problems allegedly caused by the omission of a gap and party wall with the neighbouring property.
Daniel Hoban claimed his wife did not want to return to their Pembroke Lane home following the birth of their first baby because she was traumatised by the noise problems from next door.
The court heard that similar homes in the area can fetch up to €1.5 million but the noise problem affected value and meant it took seven years to sell the property, which made €910,000 last year.
Mr Hoban, a medical sales representative, and his father Joseph are suing property developer brothers Frank and Mark Cassin, who built the adjoining property. Both houses were built at the same time on the sites of a former mews and a coach house.
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The Hobans seek orders requiring the Cassins to put in a second wall and gap on their side and are also seeking damages for nuisance. The Cassins, who built the house as an investment, deny the claims and say it was built in compliance with regulations.
They say they lost their entire €400,000 investment after a receiver took over the house in 2015 and sold it last year for €910,000.
Mr Hoban also sued his own architect, Frank Elmes of St Laurence Park, Stillorgan, for allegedly failing to properly supervise the building works. That action was settled.
The court heard both houses were built by the same contractor following an agreement between the Cassins and Mr Hoban in 2008. Mr Hoban and his wife moved into their home on completion while, following a short period renting it out, Mark Cassin moved into the other house with his partner and young child between 2009 and 2013.
Mr Hoban claimed the Cassins decided at some time during the construction to omit an air gap and dividing wall, a claim which they strongly deny.
He claimed the Cassins attached a concrete staircase and electrical wiring and fittings to the party wall resulting in serious noise nuisance. He claimed speech from the Cassin side was audible and intelligible and the house did not meet minimum sound insulation requirements.
The court heard a bespoke kitchen/living area in the Cassin property, with a television on the wall, immediately abutted the wall where the Hoban master bedroom was located.
The Cassins, now of Percy Lane, Dublin 4, later moved and a family with three children came into their house as tenants in 2013. At this point the problem became much worse.
Following the birth of their first child, the Hobans moved into Mr Hoban’s father’s house for a time before renting another property locally. They now live on Wellington Road.
“We were very traumatised, and my wife was very upset. We had to abandon our house,” Daniel Hoban told his counsel Eanna Mulloy SC, with Tim Dixon BL, instructed by Joanne Hoban of Hoban Boino Solicitors.
Under cross examination by Mark Cassin, who defended the case personally on his and his brother’s behalf, Mr Hoban denied he had not raised the noise problem before 2013. He disagreed that the wall was built in accordance with planning permission because, he said, there was no air gap between the properties.
Mark Cassin gave evidence that there was an agreement with Mr Hoban to build a common party wall and the plans in the joint tender clearly show there was only one wall. If there had been an agreement to build a wall on their side they would have done so because it would have cost relatively little, but there was no agreement, he said.
The case resumes next week before Mr Justice Alexander Owens.