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Alexander McCowan’s house in Kaimakli

AT SOME point in your life you will find yourself living among public works to improve a street, fix a leaky pipe or support a dangerous building, to name a few.

Ideally, the impact will be minimal.

The public bodies responsible for the work will have explained to you exactly what will happen and why.

The works will begin and end as scheduled.

The contractors will do their best to minimise disruption and damage and will leave behind, at the end of their endeavours, a better, brighter neighbourhood.

But what happens if things do not go according to the idealised scenario and your property is damaged?

The answer is far from clear.

For a start, there is no one central body responsible for handling complaints from the public when their property is damaged in the context of public works.

And there are often many public bodies involved in construction works which are done in stages.

It can be difficult to pinpoint the exact reason for damage to a building when more than one public authority could be liable and none want the blame.

Moreover, if a property owner carried out renovation works in the past then it can be argued (and sometimes is) that it was their previous actions that caused damage.

Some buildings are naturally more vulnerable to damage.

Listed buildings are a prime example: they are older and sometimes have concealed structural weaknesses because state guidelines and supervision of the works were more relaxed when they were originally built or renovated.

This can cause problems when necessary works need to be carried out.

Earlier this year, the Water Board dug up the pavement in front of some houses in the Ayios Kassianos area of old Nicosia looking for a leak in their pipes.

The works started on March 14 but soon had to be abandoned for several days because of heavy rain which filled up the soil ditch left by the workmen.

Within days, however, the exposed soil receded underneath the front foundations of two relatively recently fully renovated, listed buildings, causing their stone door frames to subside.

“The inner walls also moved about six centimetres and the arches came apart a bit,” said Maria Makridou, the owner of one of the houses.

Makridou is renting out the house to a couple who have been living there for about ten years.

As tenants, they could not take any action themselves so Makridou let her insurance company know what had happened. The insurance company then called in their own experts to assess the damage and liability.

“The insurers placed the damage at €75,000 and the Water Board brought in their own experts for assessment and made a counteroffer,” Makridou said.

Currently, the Water Board’s insurance company is negotiating the amount with Makridou’s own insurers.

Her case highlights how crucial it is to have an insurance policy.

But be very careful to read the fine print.

On April 2008 a section of Alexander McCowan’s house in Kaimakli – also a listed building – collapsed as a direct result of ongoing road improvement works.

The McCowans bought the fully renovated house in 2005.

Unfortunately, McCowan’s insurance policy included a clause stating that he was responsible for letting the company know that public works were scheduled to take place, before or at least immediately after they started.

He had failed to do so, the insurance company refused to get involved and McCowan was left with the full responsibility of having to track down who was responsible and how compensation would work, by himself.

The roadworks were part of the Nicosia Masterplan to revitalise as well as preserve the historic parts of the city and at first the process of seeking redress seemed to go well.

The mayor of Nicosia, Eleni Mavrou, publicly stated on national TV that the municipality would do everything in their power to restore the house to its previous state.

True enough, municipal contractors proceeded to rebuild those parts of the house that had been destroyed.

However, ominous looking cracks soon appeared in the rebuilt section of the house. This time the McCowans found it increasingly difficult to get any sort of response from the municipality on further repairs or recompense for the loss of the contents of the collapsed rooms.

“It’s been very frustrating to say the least,” Alexander McCowan told the Sunday Mail.

The McCowans hired a lawyer who in October 2008 sent a letter to the municipality asking for the compensation owed by the municipality as operators of the Masterplan, employers of the contractor “and in accordance with the assurances given by the Mayor at the time”.

We are now in 2011 and, the McCowans say, the municipality has been refusing to respond to emails, letters, and phone calls from either the McCowans themselves or their lawyers.

The Sunday Mail was equally unsuccessful in getting any sort of official response. No municipality officials would go on the record to comment on a case that is now before the courts. Those who did speak off the record suggested that the problems with the house predated the roadworks and were the result of fundamental weaknesses with the house’s foundations and poor restoration when the house was renovated. All listed buildings, however, have to be renovated under stringent specifications set by the municipality itself.

Finally, on June 23, the McCowans received a hand delivered letter, dated almost a month before, from the municipality’s lawyers stating that on May 3 a municipal civil engineer had examined the house and found nothing wrong with it.

The couple insists that no one from the municipality had visited them on that date, though they admit it is possible an engineer could have looked at the outside of the house without them being aware.

“The house is separating, there are cracks everywhere. It’s absolutely staggering that the municipality could deny that the building is in peril,” a frustrated McCowan said after they received the letter.

From the outset, the McCowans have followed the correct procedure for making these types of complaints to a municipality.

The procedures state that if the public works are done under the auspices of a municipality, then the building’s owner should send a written complaint via letter or email outlining the specific details of the problem. The McCowans did this.

The owner is then informed that the complaint has been received and has been delegated to the appropriate body.

This is regardless of whether the damage can be immediately pinpointed to a particular body, for example the electricity authority or the waterboard.

Although there is no set timeframe, the complaint should be handled “within a sensible time” as one official put it. The McCowans have been waiting three years.

But because time is passing and the contractors in the McCowans’ case did repair the original damage, it is proving a lengthy and tedious process to establish fault.

With no insurance company chasing the case up for them, the McCowans will have to wait for the case to get to court.

“I find it very distressing that our claims are ignored,” McCowan said. “I can’t understand why the municipality would refuse to respond for three years.”

 

What to do if things go wrong when works are carried out directly by the Communications and Works Ministry

SOME public works fall under the auspices of the Ministry of Communications and Works instead of a particular municipality.

When things go amiss in that scenario property owners should “first try to resolve the issue with the contractors directly,” said the director of public works at the Ministry of Communications and Works, Alecos Michaelides.

Michaelides said that the ministry will act “as a mediator in case there is disagreement between the contractor and a member of the public.”

In that case, the complaint should be addressed “to the authority in charge of the works,” Michaelides said.

If all else fails, members of the public can appeal to independent bodies arbitrating complaints.

The Ombudswoman’s office can investigate complaints from the public against state mechanisms.

The Council for the Registration and Control of Contractors can investigate complaints against contractors. But neither body has the power to impose any decisions.