“Due Diligence” a requisite for any Council Letterkenny property purchase

Letterkenny based Fine Gael Cllr Jimmy Kavanagh has been told by officials at a Housing and Corporate services SPC meeting of Donegal County Council that while the council were trying to expedite and “committed” to the purchase of a number of properties at Ballymacool Woods in Letterkenny, they had to follow a “due diligence” approach, by necessity.

Cllr Kavanagh had raised the issue of tenants in situ at Ballymacool Woods and referenced that seven properties were involved.

He said: “All of the members of Letterkenny MD got an email this week from the person looking after the sale of them, who have now put a deadline of April 12 on them for the tenants to vacate.

“I am just wondering if there is any progress in getting an update from the Housing agency on those particular applications.”

Eamonn Brown, Senior Executive Officer said that he would ask the area manager to come back to the member’s specifically on that “but I am aware that the deadline is quite tight in terms of our own due diligence and following acquisition policy”.

“That is going to be challenging to meet that, but we are committed to acquiring the properties but it is a case that we must go through the various stages and carry out the due diligence.

“But I know that the area manager has been working on this and I will get him to update all the MD members on that.

“The final comment is that we are committed to acquiring the properties, we just need to go through the various steps there and that will take a period of time.”

Cllr Kavanagh replied:

“I wonder if that has been communicated to the vendor, because he’s sending us an email this week, trying to put pressure on the members to put pressure on the council with this deadline. So I wonder is he aware of where the council are at, with this?”

Mr Brown in turn replied:

“It is my understanding that the area manager was in communication with him last week, so I suppose, I was a bit surprised by the email where there was a suggestion that there was limited or no communications because that is not the situation as I’m aware of it.

“I think the vendor is obviously keen to move things along as quickly as possible, as we are, but I do know we have the due diligence within that process.”

He concluded by stating he would speak again to colleagues, “to ensure that the vendor is fully up to date on what our position is and what stage of the process that we are at”.