{"id":665173,"date":"2026-10-25T19:20:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T19:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/665173\/"},"modified":"2026-10-25T19:20:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T19:20:13","slug":"meeting-hears-how-mica-misdiagnosis-is-devaluing-sound-donegal-homes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/665173\/","title":{"rendered":"Meeting hears how ‘Mica misdiagnosis’ is devaluing sound Donegal homes"},"content":{"rendered":"

A public meeting held on Friday night heard how the ‘Mica’ misdiagnosis has led to the devaluing of structurally-sound homes and created a ‘stigma’ that is having a negative impact on both sellers and buyers.<\/p>\n

The Letterkenny meeting was organised by the Banking and Insurance Focus Group, which represents those impacted by the crisis in multi-stakeholder discussions on issues such as banking, insurance, mortgage and conveyancing.<\/p>\n

Those gathered and watching online heard how, around 18 months ago, the multi-stakeholder forum, which includes representatives from national banks, engineers, auctioneers, values and the legal sector, set up a ‘technical subgroup.’<\/p>\n

This group was to determine how to effectively protect buyers, who were in the market to purchase properties and also protect sellers of low-risk or no-risk homes, to ensure they’d get a fair market price.<\/p>\n

However, the meeting was told that this process has ‘completely stalled’ over the last year and there has been no communication with the focus group. <\/p>\n

The meeting also heard that groups such as banks and insurance companies are still seeking ‘Mica’ percentages on properties, despite the science proving that it is internal sulphate attack caused by pyrite and pyrrhotite that is causing defective concrete.<\/p>\n

Mica, it was stressed, was a ‘misdiagnosis,’ and even the word itself has created a ‘stigma’ in relation the buying and selling of properties.<\/p>\n

Those gathered heard of property sales falling through and homes being devalued by hundreds of thousands of euro due to mica appearing on a test.<\/p>\n

This is despite the properties being structurally sound and with low percentages of other deleterious materials.<\/p>\n

The meeting heard testimony from a couple, in their 70s, whose home showed no evidence of damage or cracking.<\/p>\n

Testing showed no evidence of pyrrhotite, negligible levels of pyrite and sulphur within in the normal range.<\/p>\n

Block testing results were returned as ‘normal’ for the age of the property and two independent engineer surveys reported the property as structurally sound.<\/p>\n

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However, mica results came back at 11%, leading to ‘disastrous results’ when the couple tried to sell the property.<\/p>\n

The couple, who were not named, said their story could be compared to one where a wrong medical diagnosis is made, ‘with disastrous results.’<\/p>\n

“In our case, the wrong diagnosis is mica and mica is not the cause of defective blocks.<\/p>\n

“It has been shown in scientific studies by Professor Paul Dunlop and Dr Andreas Leehman that the cause is due to internal sulphate attack, caused by pyrite and pyrrhotite, and not mica.<\/p>\n

They continued: “Due to a serious misdiagnosis, our perfectly healthy property has been stigmatised and cannot being sold at market value. Buyers are being misled by false information.” <\/p>\n

The Banking and Insurance Focus Group has been working to establish an agreed approach for testing homes that protects everyone in the process and confirms the property is sound.<\/p>\n

The meeting heard a presentation on the Mundich Approach, which was launched in Cornwall.<\/p>\n

This established a multi-rigorous three-stage testing process, which assigns a grade to a property to govern its mortgageability and market value. <\/p>\n

It was stressed out how presence of mica, or its percentage, on a property, does not mean that a home is defective.<\/p>\n

The meeting heard that mica should not be used to determine the structural risk of a property and the science must be followed.<\/p>\n

The focus group asked homeowners, who have been experiencing difficulties in the property market due to the defective concrete and mica issue to get in touch with them.<\/p>\n

They can be emailed at banksandinsurancedcbfocusgroup@yahoo.com.<\/p>\n

Funded by the News Reporting Scheme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A public meeting held on Friday night heard how the ‘Mica’ misdiagnosis has led to the devaluing of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60],"class_list":["post-665173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}