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Belfast Live
Belfast Live
National
Connor Lynch

Obel Tower residents highlight broken lifts and overflowing bins

Residents living in the Obel Tower say they are faced with overflowing bins, broken lifts and flooded car parks despite paying thousands every year in service charges.

The apartment block is the tallest building in Ireland and those living there said it was advertised to them as a high end property in the heart of Belfast City Centre.

However, some of those living there have said the apartments are not what they were sold and have a number of issues such as broken lifts, loose fitted windows, constantly overflowing bins and car parks that flood. There have also been issues with anti-social behaviour that have caused concern.

Read more: Belfast's Obel tower homeowners given bills of nearly £6k to fix defects apartment block

Speaking to Belfast Live, resident Lisa-Marie Saygiver said: "There are a number of issues in the building that need to be addressed and cause constant problems.

"The lifts in the building are always breaking down, which makes things especially hard for people living on the upper floors who have to walk up countless flights of stairs. There have been times that families with buggies have had to drag them up the stairs and people with disabilities are basically stuck.

"The bin area is a disgrace most of the time, with bags of rubbish pouring out of the room into a car park that has had numerous flooding incidents.

"The rooms themselves also have problems as the windows have not been sealed correctly so when there is heavy winds you feel it blowing all around the apartment and there are issues with water coming in them.

"We are also feel like there is no security at the building, with people just wandering in off of the street.

"We have had issues with people stealing mail in the reception and I have found used needles a few yards away from the front door. There was even a time that I had to ring an ambulance after finding a woman who had overdosed in the reception."

Lisa-Marie says that residents pay £3,000 a year service charge to property management company Lisney, and says she cannot understand what the money is being used for.

Residents of the Obel Tower, Belfast, have complained about overflowing bins, broken lifts and stolen mail (Justin Kernoghan)

She continued: "No one is sure about where our service charge money is actually going. We don't have the security or maintenance that is required and when there is an urgent issue in our flats we are told to deal with them ourselves.

"When there is work that is carried out on the property, the costs are always passed on to residents and we feel like we are paying an awful lot of money to get nothing in return."

Those living in the Obel Tower apartments were recently given a bill to pay for work on the building after faults were found underneath its cladding.

As a result the property is unable to be insured until the work is complete.

Property managers Lisney have said that the details of what is contained in the service charge is available to all residents and that a "fully comprehensive lift maintenance contract" is in place at Obel Tower and that an engineer is despatched whenever a fault is reported. Although with there being two lifts servicing 27 floors, it deals with heavy traffic.

It also said that its bins are supplied and collected by Belfast City Council and that "the council had damaged a number of bins during collections rendering them unusable and has replaced some of them."

This took some time due to supply chain issues. Lisney also said that this was not covered by the service charge as it is residential waste.

Lisney also said that the car park of the building does not flood, but there was an "isolated incident" with a faulty valve on a high pressure pump which caused some flooding that was cleared in a matter of hours.

The Obel Tower, Belfast. (Justin Kernoghan)

With regards to the windows in the property, Lisney said: "There are over a thousand windows in the building. All exposed to high winds given the location of the building and its height.

"There are occasional instances where window hinges adjust in the wind stopping them from closing properly. Repairs are extremely difficult and carried out as and when required.

"Repairs require specialist equipment to lift the windows away from the building, windspeeds to be below 10mph and permission to close off the walkway below from the Department of Communities."

Read more: Consultation launched on £150m Queen's Quay development in Belfast

Read more: Residents call South Belfast apartments '£6.6m crack den'

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