Legal work

It's been a lazy month for me in terms of blogging. Why I hear you ask?


For the best part of the month I've been on my own in the office dealing with everything, as the boss was out of the country on business, only to be delayed by the Volcanic Ash that disturbed air travel into and across Europe.


Most of the last month was spent doing work that I would not normally be fully engaged in. One such job was attending court as an expert witness for a public house licence application. Well it took two visits to the court to sort out the licence after an objection was received on the first day. I have to say it was an interesting experience and the licence was sorted out in the end.


Sticking with the all things legal, I spend some days preparing a report for another court case, this time, where a builder renovated a house and the standard of work leaves a lot to be desired. Without going into any details, the fact that the project did not have any supervision by a consultant didn't help matters nor did the fact that there were no detailed construction drawings. This should prove an interesting case when it does come before the courts.


Add sorting out a few land registry maps into the mix and you get the type of time I've been having. Dealing with legal map is at the best of times a pain, but when solicitors are introduced into the dealings, it can become more troublesome than its worth, particularly when one gets solicitors whom are not all that familiar will conveyancing.

Other work involved dealing and making a few observations on planning applications on behalf of clients, not something I used to do regularly in the past, however money is money.  Sticking with planning its been a mixed bag in terms of decisions in the last few weeks, there was one refusal for a village centre development by An Bord Pleanala, which was disappointing, in that it had received the green light for the planning authority and the inspector's report was very favorable towards a number of aspects of the scheme.  We did receive three positive decisions in terms of developments and lodged two planning applications in the last month.  A further planning application is due to be lodged late next week.

The two jobs on site are currently progressing well, both should require site visits next week as stage payments will due to be certified.

Building progress

Its week 3 and work is progressing on site nicely at present on this extension.  We did run into a few small problems in that the depth of the excavation of the foundations was deeper than expected. As everything has to be manually moved, it was decided to put a suspended concrete floor in with Conc T-beams rather than taking out all the fill under the floor.

At this tage the block work of this element of the project is complete, with the roofers scheduled to start on Monday.  Next week will see the builders remove the existing garage roof and commence on the first floor extension. It is expected that the majority of the work will be complete within the next 5 weeks.