Any comeback after buying this house?

Curly_Wurly

Hi,

I just posted a long post about this and lost the bloody thing!! Ok, i'll keep it brief. Basically we bought a house 4 yrs ago and it was a 2nd hand house built in 2001 or thereabouts. We are having some home improvement work done to make the house more energy efficient, etc. During all of this work, the builder had to strip part of the house down and uncovered a few things. These were mainly:-

1) No insulation between the cavity wall and a pool of water in the actual cavity from the rain coming through a gap.

2) We have 2 big bay windows in the house and the builder uncovered problems overhead in the "roof" of the bays - there were no insulation at all in there and worst of all, no proper support beams to keep the structure safe.

3) Worst of all, some tiles fell off the roof and upon investigating we found that there was no felt in the roof of the bay windows to keep it dry. This allowed water to seep in and the wooden latts or beams are soaking wet and softening. The roof tiles are also placed incorrectly over the bay windows and not letting the water run off - moreso it collects the water in a little resevoir! I've heard the guy that did the roof, although calling himself a roofer is the worst in the area and hasn't got a clue.

So my question is:- Do we have any comeback over this? OUr budget has massively increased and we can't afford it. Bottom line. Is it our own fault that we didn't know this before buying the house and carrying out the survey? Or can somebody who signed off on the building of the house be held responsible?

Any ideas?

Hope somebody can point me in the right direction!
Thanks,
Curly_Wurly

appleb

You poor thing. Nightmare. Since your house was origionally built in 2001 it might be covered by homebond. That normally lasts for 10 years and I believe most reliable builders have it. Otherwise, coz you didnt have a survey completed, I'm not sure. Unless your sellers knowingly sold it on being aware of the existing problems?

Curly_Wurly

Yeah we had a survey done but everything was fine with it. The guy that did it didn't break some of the walls around the windows away or anything like that. This is the main reason we found out what was happening - by lifting up windowboards, stripping back the walls for the new windows, etc.

I think somebody was saying it could be the architect who signed off on the building although they could be wrong!

pseudo-tech

It is important to note that an Architect do not visit site every single day during the construction. His/Her comment will only be on what they see. However, if they feel that the quality of work is poor in general, they should investigate more. In my opinion, the first port of call would be the contractor who is responsible for building the house. If however, the contractor can prove that the Architects drawings were defective you need to turn your spot light on them. I would be surprised if an Architects drawings and specification contained instructions for the contractor to omit insulation and lintels. Difficult one to sort out. A long and winding road!

kmick

Caveat emptor in this situation. The original buyer may not even have known these problems existed. How mush is it all going to cost you?

O'Coonassa

appleb wrote: »

Since your house was origionally built in 2001 it might be covered by homebond. That normally lasts for 10 years and I believe most reliable builders have it.

AFAIK that's the only way it'll be covered.

Curly_Wurly

Yes you're right, buyer beware alright! I think it was a group of english builders working in the area at that time 'cos we know the 1st owners who did the build and apparantly after building the house, the guys moved back to England. So I don't know if the homebond would apply.... I do think the 1st owner who built it did cut corners, having known him the last few years after buying. He told us he hadn't planned on staying at our house as he had another site nearby with more land so wanted to eventually build there and raise a family there.

Our builder doing the maintenance work said that the guy who built the property, didn't have a building contractor to organise workers, materials, etc and so he should have been responsible for ordering materials and he probably scrimped on costs by leaving certain things out..Who knows, I probably guess this was the case, as I said I know the man.

It's costing around an extra €4k to fix everything. €4k that we unfortunately don't have!

No6

Try claiming it on your home insurance policy and let your insurer's go after the builder. However if it was a direct labour type build you have no real comeback.

pseudo-tech

No6 wrote: »

Try claiming it on your home insurance policy and let your insurer's go after the builder. However if it was a direct labour type build you have no real comeback.

Good point again No.6. Taking the legal route it a long road to take and with the possibility of the contractor being non-existent makes it very difficult!

Kashkai

Did you get a survey done before you bought the house (i.e. your own detailed one and not the cursory one that the mortgage provider insists on). If so, why weren't some of these items picked up (i.e. the visible ones like the tiles allowing ponding on the roof that would have set off the alarm bells that perhaps other things weren't right). If you did get a survey done, then maybe the surveyor has something to answer for.

I can't see an insurance company paying out for building defects like these. If they did, then they'd be paying out millions a year for the shoddy work of some builders.