The council in 2004 confirmed a code of compliance certificate had been issued by Approved Building Certifiers Ltd (ABC). A copy was also supplied to the trust by the vendor.
However, the trust claimed ABC was not competent to issue the certificate due to a building code change in December 2002, after construction began.
ABC at that time carried out an exercise to identify which of its projects would be affected by the code change, and notified the council that it could not certify a number of projects.
The council was to assume certification responsibilities for the projects ABC could not certify, but the company did not list the Arney Crescent property among them.
The trust argued the council should have carried out its own independent exercise to determine which certifications it needed to take over.
It alleged the council was negligent by not taking over certification responsibilities, accepting ABC's compliance certificate, and informing the trust's solicitor a certificate had been issued.
The Court of Appeal found the council did not owe a duty of care because the building owner had opted to use a private certifier, rather than the council, to certify compliance.
The majority of the Supreme Court upheld that decision and dismissed the trust's appeal.
This evening, Patrick McNamara declined to comment on the ruling but said the amount of costs the pair had sought was a "substantial amount".
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