We move into our beautiful new home

On June 4th 1976, my wife Gemma and I, along with our nine children, took possession of No. 56 Carlisle Park, Ballynahinch, Co. Down. No. 56 is the third in a block of four two-storied houses, 52, 54, 56 and 58 Carlisle Park. No. 56 was described in the local newspaper, quote,

"This modern terraced house with three bedrooms gives ample family sized accommodation in a popular residential area of Ballynahinch. Accommodation: Entrance Hall, lounge, Dining area, Kitchen, Three bedrooms, Bathroom. Outside: Gardens front and rear laid in lawn. Garage with up and over door. Ground Rent £15-00. NAV £130-00. M/S King & Boyd, Solicitors, Downpatrick. For further details contact agents, Alexander, Reid & Fraser, English Street, Downpatrick."

We contacted the agents and a Mr. Tom McClelland brought us to view No. 56. No. 56 was beautiful and it seemed quite unnecessary for Mr. McClelland to be emphasising the fact that the house was covered by a ten year guarantee, whatever that was. My wife and I then went to keep an appointment with my accountant Mr. G. A. Jameson in Downpatrick. Alfie, as I knew him, brought us downstairs to see his (late) brother Patrick, and to my delight, a telephone call by Patrick to the Nationwide Building Society in Lisburn obtained for us a mortgage for No. 56, there and then.

Although we paid no attention to it at the time, we had some difficulty in arranging further viewings of No. 56 with the owners Mr. and Mrs. Campbell. At one of our arranged meetings in No. 56, Mrs. Campbell agreed to sell us all the fittings, curtains, venetian blinds and carpets for only £200.00. Such value for money was offered on top of the actual house price of £8,500.00 which was exactly £2,000.00 less than a semi-detatched house we had called at less than a hundred yards from No. 56, and as regards size, internal layout and accommodation the two houses were identical. We paid the £18.00 fee for a house survey at the request of the Nationwide Building Society. The surveyor was chosen by the Building Society.

We then began immediately to raise £1200.00 for the deposit on our new home. This was quite straightforward. We obtained permission from Ballynahinch Credit Union to sell the mobile which they had lent us the money to purchase almost a year earlier and use the proceeds for the deposit on No. 56. We sold the mobile for £900.00 almost at once. I then sold my piano accordion for £200.00 and raised the remaining £100.00 within a short time. From living in a little two bed-roomed cottage with a mobile home to supplement sleeping accommodation for six of the children to stepping into No.56 in such a smooth fashion was almost too good to be true.

The summer of 1976 was unusually long and hot. The children were delighted with their new home and all the new friends they were making. It was so much safer for them to play outside in Carlisle Park compared to playing beside the busy main Belfast to Newcastle road which ran past the old cottage at No.11. No. 56 had a nice lawn at the front with flowers around it and we treated ourselves to a new lawnmower. The only other items we were able to afford were a table and four chairs for the dining area.
My workshop at 11 Newcastle Road was actually attached to the old cottage we had just left so it was a new experience for me to start work at 9.00am and stop around 6.00pm. Previously my work had started at the same time but because I had lived right beside my work I often did not get finished until near bedtime. In fact I was quite pleased at the amount of productive work I put into my new routine and the new mortgage was no problem. We let the old cottage for £6.00 per week to a newly wed couple and allowed the purchaser of the mobile home to live in it at 11 Newcastle Road, so I was able to go home at night knowing that my workshop, tools and customers' cars were reasonably safe.

Preparations for school were now being made. Our eldest girl had left Drumaness Primary School and was due to start St. Colman's Intermediate (now High) School in Ballynahinch. Our new address also meant that our other school-going children were due to start the new school year in a new school also, St. Patrick's, Ballynahinch.

This was one of the most satisfying periods of my life. I had a wonderful sense of achievement and fulfilment and the terrible burden of agoraphobia from which I had suffered so long, just seemed to leave me.

The children started their new schools and the long hot summer of 1976 was beginning to give way to autumn. I returned home from work each evening to a chorus of welcomes and a smell from the kitchen which was equally welcome.

Gradually I became more aware of another smell when I entered the hallway of the house in the evenings. Gemma had noticed the smell too. It was a bad smell. As the days wore on into autumn the bad smell got stronger and Gemma told me that it was starting earlier in the day. One evening when I arrived home Gemma was quite distressed and it was obvious that something had to be done to find out just what this bad smell was.

At times the smell was like smoke from burning coal but very often our fire was not lit and at other times it was much stronger than coal fire smoke, as I knew it anyway. That evening after supper we quite literally followed our noses. As the smell was usually most obvious in the hallway we knew we must concentrate our attention there. The staircase was situated in the hallway and up alongside the wall dividing No. 56 from No. 54. The smell was strongest underneath the staircase in the area of the board carrying the electricity supply apparatus. I got a torch and checked all the wiring but there was nothing overheating. As I shone the torch around, I noticed that in the area under the staircase which was closed off from the view of anyone in the hallway, the red brick wall was visible as no plaster had been put on it.

A Harsh Reality

I called Gemma. Not only was the red brick wall visible but the source of the bad smell was also visible. Little wisps of grey and grey/green smoke were actually coming out of the spaces between the bricks. Our fire was not lit. The smoke was coming from the fireplace in the house next door, No. 54.

I went next door to tell my neighbour Mr. Joyce, who was a full-time fireman and a customer of mine. Mr. Joyce came back with me and when he saw what was happening he went back into his house and returned with a large tube of pollyfilla. With Mr. Joyce's help I filled in all the spaces in the brickwork as well as I could. Unfortunately the bad smell continued. We approached Mr. Joyce again but there didn't seem to be much that he could do except to tell us to go and explain the problem to the builder of the houses, a Mr. Martin Brown.

Because I had to stay at my work as much as possible, Gemma went to Mr. Brown who said that he would soon sort the problem out, and duly came along to No. 56 the following morning. Mr. Brown said that the smoke was actually coming from our own fireplace at the other side of our house, travelling up the tunnel made to accommodate our hot water pipes leading from the boiler behind our fireplace, along the space between our living-room ceiling and the bedroom floor upstairs and down behind our staircase from the area around the hot water cistern in the bathroom above and to the front of the hallway.

Mr. Brown told Gemma that he would remove the floorboards in our bedroom above the tunnel which runs vertically up the side of the chimney breast in the living room and fill the tunnel with sand. This would stop the smoke from travelling up this tunnel. In the company of my wife, Mr. Brown lifted part of the carpet in our bedroom only to find that pieces of floorboard were just sitting loose and ready to be lifted out, and when Mr. Brown lifted these loose boards out, the tunnel which Mr. Brown was going to fill with sand had already been filled with sand!

Gemma and I just did not know what to do, but in a subsequent visit to Mr. Brown he told us not to come crying to him but to go to the Council since they bad passed the houses he had built. Now this was something we did not know.

I contacted the headquarters of Down District Council at 24 Strangford Road, Downpatrick, and told someone there of my problem and was put through to their Public Health Department. I was told that Public Health Officers would call out to No. 56. It is recorded that even though officers from Down District Council's Public Health Department visited No. 56 initially on five occasions between November 29th 1976 and January 27th 1977 inclusive, these officers reported back to their Public Health Department at Down District Council H/Q that they had found no evidence of smoke in No. 56 on any of these occasions.

Lies, Damned Lies etc...

I found this situation absolutely incredible since the emission of smoke into our home from the fireplace of No. 54 had steadily increased with the onset of winter making it necessary to open doors as well as windows on occasions. I recalled the estate agent had told me about a ten year guarantee on the house and found out that another Council was involved, the National House-Building Council. I rang the NHBC in Belfast and told someone there of my problem. In a letter from the NHBC dated February 7th 1977 I was told,

"The Council (ie the NHBC) are very sorry to hear of your problems and we must tell you that this Council have removed R.M. Brown from our Register of House-builders because he did not properly discharge his responsibilities to purchasers. This is no consolation to you but it does at least make you aware that we do take action against erring builders." I was now beginning to smell a few rats as well as smoke in No. 56. The letter went on, "Even though R.M. Brown is off the Register he still has responsibilities on houses which you will find on your Protection Certificate. We are placed in a very difficult position because of the fact that your house is five years old and we are only now hearing of your problem. If you have had the trouble for some time then we must know if it was discovered in the first two years after the date of certificate issue. And should that be the case did you report it in writing to the builder as required by your House Purchasers Agreement. Please bring forward this evidence. Mr. Brown has of course responsibilities to you under common law but the fault in your house now only becomes the responsibility NHBC if it is a Major Structural Defect, and from the evidence you give it does not appear to fall within this definition..
We have sent a copy of this letter to the Rt. Hon . Enoch Powell, MP. Yours faithfully, W Brian Boyd MANAGER NI."

I was rather displeased with this reply coming on top of Down District Council's totally negative response to our plight and I rang NHBC headquarters and told them so. I received a second letter dated February 14th 1977 again signed by the Northern Ireland manager of NHBC which stated among other things,

"We are told in a letter from Down District Council that the property is five years old and certainly if that is the case it seems most unlikely that NHBC can, within its terms of reference, help you.. We think that it is unfair of you to criticise this Council because you do not like our conditions.. In a letter from Down District Council they indicate that the house you live in is five years old and that other people who are neighbours at No's 52, 54 and 58 have the same complaint.. We may tell you that in your house the complaint you make regarding smoke leaking is not a major structural defect and therefore would not now come under the protection of NHBC."

I was also told that a copy of this letter had been passed on to the Rt. Hon. Enoch Powell MP, to whom I had also written but who wrote back and told me that my problem was outside his powers and responsibilities.

So Down District Council had taken the trouble to write to NHBC.

This was very interesting indeed, but considerably more interesting was the fact recorded in this NHBC letter of February 14th 1977 that sometime before that date Down District Council had put in writing to NHBC that all the other houses in the block had the same complaint. Why, as recently as January 27th 1977, did Public Health Officers from the same Down District Council claim the exact opposite?

The question has to be asked if those officers really did claim that there was no evidence of smoke in No. 56 on the five occasions when they called at my request? The information in this NHBC letter would suggest that they must have brought back information to Down District Council (DDC) to the effect that there was smoke entering No. 56 from next door and that the information then released by these officers' superiors later to Gemma, to me and the Commissioner for Complaints (C for C) etc., was tailored to suit their particular requirements. Of course the person within DDC who had written to NHBC was not to know this information was going to be passed on to me. This was just the first of many similar incidents.

Lawyers also

I rang Mr. Peter Fitzpatrick of James F. Fitzpatrick & Co., who was my solicitor when I bought No. 56. Mr. Fitzpatrick later told me that he had been in touch with Mr. Brian Boyd of NHBC who told him that the problem was a lack of flue liners and since these were not a legal requirement when these houses were built, there was nothing a solicitor could do about it.

I was at a loss to know what to do. Some time previously I had written a number of short motoring items for the Down Recorder for my own interest and it occurred to me that maybe I could persuade someone there to take an interest in what was being done to my family. I rang the Down Recorder in Downpatrick and on February 17th 1977 the first of many newspaper reports was published about this affair. The final paragraph of the report which was accompanied by a photograph of Gemma pointing to where the smoke was coming into our home read,

"In the meantime as the authorities continue the legal wrangle over who should take responsibility for the houses, Mr. Rice's family continue to run a daily health risk."

I can only guess what the reaction was behind the closed doors in what the Mourne Observer advertisement called the popular residential area of Ballynahinch. I knew I would not be its most popular resident but that did not rate at all in my list of priorities. My customers were starting to talk to me about the report in the newspaper. They would also be talking to others. For some reason this helped my morale. It had one very surprising outcome, surprising at the time, but with hindsight not so surprising.

The lady who lived in No. 58 brought Gemma into her home while I was at work and showed her the smoke from our fire entering her home. Gemma was told in no uncertain manner that we would have to get our smoke stoppped as No. 58 was to be sold and we were not going to be allowed to spoil that sale.

I wrote to NHBC on February 28th 1977 and received the following reply on March 23rd 1977;

"Thank you for your letter dated 28:2:77. We sent you the copy of the letter from Mr. Brown because we felt that it might be of help to you in connection with this matter. We must inform you that the information that was previously given to you in our letter of 14:2:77 still stands in that a complaint regarding smoke that is being emitted from a flue does not constitute a major structural defect and therefore cannot at this time be dealt with within the jurisdiction of NHBC. We have informed you of the rights that exist under common law to consider action that could be taken but certainly if NHBC were to be involved in such a case, regardless of whether the builder was in our scheme or not, then the requirement is that purchasers must have brought the matter to the attention of the builder within the initial defects period. Initial defects period is two years following the date of Certificate issue. It seems unfortunate that if this complaint has been in existence for a considerable period of time that none of the previous owners took action concerning it. We regretfully must reiterate our view that NHBC cannot help you in this case. Yours faithfully, R. Graham."

Nobody from NHBC ever bothered to come to No. 56 either to see if there was a problem, yet on the evidence of hearsay that there was a problem, NHBC identified its cause. Not only that but NHBC having then relieved itself of any responsibility in the matter advised me of my legal rights elsewhere but made sure to tell my solicitor that those legal rights did not exist because of the fact that there was no legal requirement to redress the NHBC's perceived cause of the problem.

It could be said with some truth that I was becoming fascinated with the whole affair. I was beginning to feel that if I did my work, my hard work, the way these people in two different councils did theirs I would not be paid in my job to help keep them in theirs. I promised myself that one way or another they were going to earn their keep.

NHBC Fraud

When I came home from work on April 8th 1977 I took out my fireplace completely. In the process the plasterboard which made up the side of the chimney breast and which enclosed the hot water pipes surrounded with the sand became undone at the base. The dry smoky sand just poured out over the carpet and the sooty dust covered the whole living room and dining area. Gemma was reduced to tears. We eventually got the place cleaned up and closed up the fireplace opening with concrete blocks and mortar. A plasterer finished off the job and we covered the area where the fireplace used to be with wallpaper. We put an oil-filled electric radiator in its place, our only source of heat other than the gas cooker in the kitchen. This action did two things.
Firstly it stopped our fire smoke from polluting No. 58 Carlisle Park.
Secondly, neither the builder nor anyone else could state that it was our own smoke which was travelling across our own house and polluting us if it came in again.

The smoke just kept coming.

I wrote to the BBC consumer programme "That's Life" but my letter was only acknowledged. I was to write to the same programme about eleven times over the following years with no success.
No. 58 Carlisle Park was put up for sale and sold quite quickly about this time. No doubt there was a Ten Year Protection Certificate issued by the NHBC in respect of No. 58. Estate agents and others call it a Ten Year Guarantee. A modern dwelling house has to have this certificate or a qualified architect's written certification that the house has been properly built in order to qualify for a loan from a Building Society.
As has already been mentioned the Building Society also requires the purchaser to pay for an independent surveyor's certification that the house has been properly built and of course the Building Society holds the deed of the house until the last penny has been paid. The Building Society has even more protection but I will refer to that later. The Nationwide Building Society even held the NHBC Ten Year Protection Certificate on No. 56 and it was only later when I found this out that I was able to obtain a copy of it. The copy sent to me by the Nationwide Building Society referred to plot 49, later designated No. 56. I later obtained, a copy of the official site plan for the Carlisle Park development and where in reality there is a block of four terraced houses, the site plan specifies only two semi-detached houses. The NHBC certificate for No. 56 states that the builder was Robert Martin Brown. The certificate states,

"This is to certify that (1) the Builder named opposite has undertaken as a condition of registration with the National House-Builders Registration (hereinafter called "the Council") that all buildings erected by him shall conform to the standards adopted as requirements by the Council. (2) The dwelling described opposite has been periodically inspected during construction. As far as was seen the standards of workmanship and materials were substantially in conformity with the Council's requirements."

Please have a look at the 'satisfactory requirements' of the NHBC.

"This certificate is therefore issued and entitles the purchaser to insurance benefit as set out in the form of agreement prescribed by the Council (House-Purchaser's Agreement HB5 (N.I.) and reproduced for convenience overleaf). The cover does not extend to matters insurable under an ordinary House Owners Comprehensive Policy which all owner occupiers should in their own interest take out. Background note. This certificate confers additional rights on the purchaser and takes none away. Periodic inspection does not guarantee that all defects will be prevented and in the event of dispute the builder cannot claim that this certificate proves that the house is free from defects."

No. 56 was only four and a half years old when we bought it and even in that short time we were the third owners. During the thirty four months we were to occupy it, other houses around us were being sold, but one house in particular a short distance from No. 56 was sold five times during that time. As far as I was concerned the NHBC Protection Certificate was a whitewash. Because I had now closed up my own fireplace and had proved that the smoke which was continuing to pollute our home was coming from the fireplace of No. 54, my letter to Down District Council brought the first written reply from D.D.C.'s Chief Public Health Inspector G. Jones. After I read his letter I remembered that I had seen his signature before, and after some time searching I found a previous letter from the same man. The picture being conjured up in my mind as I looked at the two letters with the same signature was not a very pretty one.

Planning Department Corruption Too

Some time before we bought No. 56 we had intended seeking planning permission to renovate our old cottage at 11 Newcastle Road. The only architect I knew was a man for whom I had and still have the highest respect, my former teacher when I was a student at the Technical School in Ballynahinch many years before, Mr Cyril McKee. When I told Mr. McKee what we were thinking of doing, he told me that the only proper way to improve our housing situation was to build a completely new house on the same site but further back from the road and at the other side of my workshop. Of course he made a lot of sense, as usual.

Immediately he produced plans of a house which he said would suit our needs perfectly, plans which were not going to cost me anything. I couldn't and didn't argue with that. In a short time he had me holding the large measuring pole from which he took levels and wrote masses of figures into his book.

He told me that he would do all he could to get planning permission for me, but first we had to get outline planning permission from the Planning Department of the Department of the Environment. Some days later two well dressed men called at No. 11 and said that they were from Down District Council's Public Health Department in Downpatrick. One was a Mr. Nicholson. I was told very authoritatively that I could not be permitted to build a septic tank for the disposal of sewerage matter from a new house on the site because the ground in which it was to be built was recently filled ground and totally unsuitable for drainage purposes. The ground had in fact been built up several years previously from low lying boggy ground into very useable ground by the tipping of thousands of tons of good clay from the site excavations of a new Northern Ireland Housing Executive housing estate just across the road from No. 11.

I told Mr.McKee the news that my visitors had brought and at the first opportunity Mr. McKee had me out again with the large measuring pole taking more levels, only this time he was planning to take the sewerage from the proposed new house, across and under the main road in front of the cottage and into the NIHE sewerage system which was very convenient.

Some more days later two different well-dressed men called at No. 11 to explain to me that I could not be permitted to use the NIHE sewerage system because, while the NIHE were responsible for the maintenance of its own system as it was, if outsiders were also allowed to use it, the system would then have to become the responsibility of Down District Council! I did not know until later that my neighbour living across the road in a private house, an "outsider", already had the use of the NIHE sewerage system! I could not allow Mr. McKee to have any more of his time wasted on such a situation, a situation which did not make sense to me.

At that time we had seven children in the old cottage, and although they were quite young, space was very limited. About three-quarters of a mile from No. 11, a customer of mine put his lovely new four bedroom bungalow up for sale. One of its main recommendations according to its owner was that it had been designed and its plans drawn by Mr. Connors from Down District Council. Then I remembered that it was Mr. Connors the Chief Building Control Inspector from DDC who some time previously had asked my permission to allow the builder of new NIHE houses across the road from No.11 to use my boggy ground for a dump for the clay being excavated on the site, permission which I was very pleased to give. We immediately put a "For Sale" notice on No. 11 to help us purchase the bungalow.

I gave the sale of No. 11 to John Fitzpatrick the local auctioneer and valuer and an uncle of the solicitor Peter Fitzpatrick who was later to do the conveyancing work on No. 56 for me. John came and looked around No.11. He took notes of the necessary details and left. Before he reached his car he turned and came back to tell me that it would be useful if he could put in the newspaper advertisement that outline planning permission for a new house was available on the site. I was so tired of that episode that I did not even bother to tell John that planning permission could not be obtained. Imagine my amazement when John returned three days later to tell me among other things that he had got outline planning permission for No. 11 to put in his advertisement! An architect had been refused outline planning permission twice over many weeks, yet an auctioneer without any plans or drawings was able to get it in three days!

We visited the Jennings bungalow several times while we waited for a buyer for No 11, it was a delight to see. Unfortunately it was not to be ours. No realistic offers were made for No. 11 before the bungalow was sold. Although I now had outline planning permission for a new dwelling at No. 11 I was not prepared to endure the obvious hassle that such an undertaking was bound to incur. My decision on this matter was confirmed to me when I received a letter from DDC dated February 24th 1976. The letter read;

"Dear sir, Re: Erection of Dwelling at 11 Newcastle Road, Ballynahinch for Mr. F. G. Rice A top outlet septic tank can be satisfactorily sited with soakaways as indicated on attached plan.
Yours faithfully,
G. Jones. DISTRICT CHIEF PUBLIC HEALTH INSPECTOR."

I was to learn later that Mr. Jones was Mr. Nicholson's boss. At the time of writing, 1990, Mr. Jones has retired and Mr. Nicholson has taken his place as DDC's Chief Environmental Health Inspector. Not only was the septic tank inked in on a copy of an ordinance survey map along with soakaways in ball point pen, but unbelievably, there was also a previously and properly drawn in outline of Mr. McKee's proposed bungalow with a sewerage disposal line also properly drawn in, from the proposed bungalow to a manhole in the NIHE estate opposite No. 11. The question has to be asked why four professional people from local and central Government departments in Downpatrick lied to me.

Why was I told that outline planning permission could not be granted because of sewerage disposal problems, problems which were not obvious to a qualified architect, when that permission was there for the asking by an auctioneer?

For legal reasons there is much of this story that I am unable to include in the following chapters. Names in italics have been changed from the names of the real participants in this shocking fraud and are fictitious. My main aim throughout has been to tell the truth and I use as much documented evidence as has been possible and relevant in telling the truth while keeping within the law.