Overgrown Garden in New Property

sugark

I've bought a house from Fingal Co. Co. under the Affordable Housing Scheme and am due to start snagging next week and hopefully close soon after that.

My question is this: the houses have been finished for about six months now and the gardens, which were newly laid when I first viewed the house back in October are now completely wild. No exaggeration, the weeds in the back garden are approximately four foot high. Are the council obliged to restore the garden to a decent state and can I put that on the snag?

I don't want anything to hold up the closing as it's taken so long to get to this stage, but is it their responsibility to do this? If it was simply a matter of long grass that a lawnmower could handle I wouldn't even mention it, but it looks like a jungle, not something you could handle yourself.

Anyone had similar garden-jungle experience on new builds?

Any advice welcome.

Bluetonic

sugark wrote:

but it looks like a jungle, not something you could handle yourself.

Why not? Get a bit of elbow grease out.

hmmm

sugark wrote:

Are the council obliged to restore the garden to a decent state...

I'm not quite sure why you expect the taxpayer to cut your back garden. A hire shop will rent you a strimmer which should be able to deal with most things.

Lex Luthor

no harm in asking....put it on the snag list and see what happens, but I doubt you'll have any joy

if its just weeds I wouldn't be bothered cutting them...I'd just get some good weedkiller, a spary gun, gloves, mask, clear the area of kids & pets and spray it...leave it for a few weeks and they'll die.

Might look crap for a while, but you'll prbably anyway have to get it rotivated because i doubt they levelled it off before the weeds grow. Typically, builders level & seed front gardens and the back is really up to the owner.

godtabh

hmmm wrote:

I'm not quite sure why you expect the taxpayer to cut your back garden. A hire shop will rent you a strimmer which should be able to deal with most things.

He is buying a house from them so why not? If you bought the same house from a developer would you not expect this to be done? In this case the developer and the county council are the same.

EKRIUQ

Buy a lawnmover your getting a cheap house, live with it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

iguana

Just get a scythe. It shouldn't take more than an afternoon to cut it down, is that really worth risking a delay?

sugark

Turns out that the Council have said they'll take care of it so problem solved!