Junior environment minister Noel Ahern has announced that the practice of stage payments in housing estates is to be ended. This follows talks with the Irish Home Builders Association and officials of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government.
The practice will not apply to such houses where contracts are entered into after June 30 this year.
Stage payments require the buyer in a new housing development to make payments to the builder at a number of set intervals or stages in line with progress of the building. The practice has been common in Cork and some other areas of the country.
Mr Ahern said that one of the problems with the stage payments system was that buyers often found themselves making payments before they were in a position to live in their new houses. He said the market worked perfectly well without these payments in other parts off the country.
