Ms Gallagher was to have released the blueprint for the demolition program when she received it more than three weeks ago but agreed to keep it confidential while the federal government decided on its response. With that decision still not made and no certainty about when the Commonwealth will finally play its hand, home owners are left to speculate and worry, and Ms Gallagher is left unable to reassure people but unable also to rule out the most stark possibility of all: that owners will have their homes compulsorily acquired and be sent packing with a pay-out to find a new house.

Ms Gallagher says she can't guarantee that home owners will be allowed to stay on their land. She wants a flexible scheme, but says the detail will depend on the Commonwealth's view and also on her determination to minimise the final cost to taxpayers. She points out that the ACT Government needs to be able to sell the land to recoup some of the hundreds of millions of dollars it will have to spend buying the properties, demolishing and remediating. There is no indication to date of the cost of buying and remediating, but if houses are worth an average $500,000 (to pluck a figure out of the air) the purchase cost alone is already $500 million alone. This is probably a significant under-estimation, given some of the houses are worth well over $2 million and are in the city's most prestigious suburbs, and all are stand-alone homes, many on big blocks.

On top of that, it's difficult to imagine a demolition and remediation program including dumping asbestos and restoring properties with new top soil, for less than $100,000 a house, which would add $100 million to the bill, on crude back-of-the-envelope calculations. This doesn't take account of the money already being handed to families for temporary accommodation, and it doesn't take into account the money continuing to be spent on asbestos testing and attempting to make the houses safe for people to live in in the meantime.

The Government estimates that it can recoup enough from land sales to end up out of pocket about $300 million. But it can only do this if it sells the land - especially the blocks in zones that allow multi-unit developments that are already being snapped up by private developers, and the blocks in sought-after suburbs like Forrest, Red Hill and the inner north. As Real Estate Institute ACT president Ron Bell pointed out this week, getting the best price could mean the government going to auction to sell the land.

It is hard to imagine the scheme will be this blunt, given Ms Gallagher's desire to have some flexibility, given the strong desire of many families to stay on their blocks and in their suburbs, and given the myriad different and difficult situations of each family. What of the families who can't get a new mortgage? Or the families who want to stay near their children's school?

And what of the families who are pushing ahead with their own demolitions and rebuilds on the understanding they won't be disadvantaged in any government package? Presumably they will be allowed to stay put. But what do they receive in way of compensation? Do they get the value of their home and house like the rest, and will they be re-funded the cost of their demolitions?

If they are allowed to stay put and be compensated, this creates a clear and crazy loophole already. If you want to stay put on your block and you fear a compulsory buy-back, is your best option to push ahead now and quickly with your own clean-up demolition and rebuild? The existence of this loophole alone would surely be enough to deter the government from a compulsory buyback and sale on the open market.

These are just some of the tricky financial issues with which the government must grapple, but there are many others, among them the request from the Fluffy owners' group for stamp duty to be waived for people buying new houses, whether families should get help with rent while they're looking for a new home, whether to pay compensation to owners who sold below market value this year, and how much should be paid to families who bought their house at a discount in the past few months, knowing it was a Fluffy.

And complicated as they are, the financial issues pale when you turn your mind to the emotional nightmares of families who don't want their lifetime home demolished at all, but want to be able to live out their lives there. It seems certain there will be a long lead-in, with such people last on the list for demolition in a program that could stretch over four or five years, but it is very difficult to imagine they will be allowed to stay beyond that.