I am surprised to learn that Taylor Wimpey have not given you a copy of the Consumer Code for House Builders.
Requirement 1.2 of the Code clearly states:
Requirement:-
"The Home Builder must display the Code and give, without charge, a copy to customers who ask for it and to all Home Buyers who reserve a Home." You can download a copy of the Code here
Consumer Code Taylor Wimpey, along with many under house builders, are paying lip service to this watered-down over simplification the requirements of the
Legislation under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 and The Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008.
The Code does enable buyers to use the
Dispute Resolution Scheme to take action against a house builder in the first two years for £120 that you can get back when you win.
Only 14 buyers have done so thus far and the industry is taking this as a sign of how good they and their homes are!
Warranty issues cannot be claimed but financial loss and poor service can.
You should keep on e mailing Taylor Wimpey CEO Pete Redfern.
He gets paid the large salary and he should be alarmed that his senior managers and staff are letting his company's customers down to such an extent that they feel they have no other option but to take legal action.
The NHBC will help, whilst Taylor Wimpey may have agreed to fix the defects they have yet to do so, or do so properly.
This being the case the defects remain a warranty issue and Taylor Wimpey are failing to honour their warranty obligations which the NHBC need to be kept informed, especially as this is going to court.
Your house is not 'signed-off' by the builder.
It should have been properly inspected and snagged at each stage of the building process. In reality any such inspections are limited to a few stage inspections by the warranty provider and Building Control Inspector - often the same person.
The most the home is inspected is when it is complete, even then, most house builders appear happy to say the home is 100% finished to a reasonable quality.
The only signing-off that matters is the CML final inspection.
This should flag up RED items (usually defects relating to safety) that require rectification before the certificate is issued and GREEN items that are minor and must be fixed within a week.
Sometimes when there are too many Green items then the certificate may be withheld depending on the inspector's opinion.
But there have been cases of new homes being signed off for CML with sections of roof missing and incomplete kitchens.
In the end, it is all the more vital that every new home buyer reads the Consumer Code before reserving, and has their home independently professionally inspected by a snagging inspector before legal completion.