Home Owners > Solicitors and Legal Issues

New Build Not According to Specification - Now Collapsing

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Skooma:
Strap in and enjoy the ride with this one...

We have been in our new build since July 2021 and 2 weeks ago heard a loud bang of an evening - what we found is that the porch canopy that protrudes over the front door had actually fallen away from the house, ripping a large hole in the front of the house

We have called Crest, our housebuilder, who sent an emergency builder out to conduct repairs - which consisted of jamming a piece of 2x4 underneath the porch without any formal fixing or support. It is literally just wedged in there to prevent an immediate full collapse of the porch canopy

Site manager was called the following day and admitted to us that the house was not built in line with specification, and that there should have been a pillar where said piece of wood now is... they also told us that we are going to have to lump this as a temporary fix for 6 months because they didn't have any pillars in supply (they are currently building houses using pillars at the moment in the next construction phase)

** side note - waiting another 6 months would push us over the 2-year mandatory requirement for the developer to fix the issue and transfer fault onto the NHBC, coincidence?

We have initiated a formal complaints procedure which resulted in the Site Manager saying the best he could do is dig a hole, fill it with cement and then rest the 2x4 on the cement so that it does not sink into the ground... attached is the cement hole which as you can see now 2 weeks later does not have anything in it... they literally dug a hole next to the temporary support and left it

Customer service just pays us lip service, they have told us twice to expect build teams round to repair the tiling and hole in the structure, no one has shown up on either occasion

We have now initiated a Subject Access Request to which Crest have said they will provide email concerning us personally but no information on our plot file:

"Please note that a subject access request is a right to a copy of the personal data that is held about you which is usually quite distinct from property data (and not covered by the Data Protection Act 2018 or the right of subject access"

We have continued with our formal complaint follow up stating the defect as a threat to life and asking when a permanent fix will be implemented (or at least a safe temporary fix) as of writing this we are nearing 48 hours with no response

Guess my questions to the forum as as follows:

1 - building a property with such a big structural defect seems like a pretty big deal right? we are being treated like its a light fixing not applied properly and not like the house is in the process of collapsing

2 - at what point do we go down the legal route, and what kind of compensation is reasonable to claim for this?

i can think of so many avenues to peruse here and it would be great to get some advice. In my opinion, here are possible causes for legal action:

- Crest signing off on the the build knowing it was against structural regulations
- Crest allowing us to move in without providing this information
- Stating the obvious, but a serious threat to life if this thing collapses on someone
- Crest failing to apply a suitable fix to the problem now resulting in structural exposure to the elements (heavy rain on a daily basis)
- Us not being able to sell the property for the next 6 months in its current state (market fluctuations could mean we are potentially missing out on a significant pricing variance over 6 months

New Home Expert:
What a shambles and that other than putting a temporary support to prevent this completely falling down and costing Crest (albeit eventually) even more to remediate, Crest Homes have done precious little to demonstrate they are worthy of their current 5-star HBF survey rating.

Firstly, you have reported it within the 2-year period so Crest are 'on the hook' for the remedial works required until it is done, even after the two years are up.  I take it you have WRITTEN to Crest and have the admittance from them that a column support was supposed to have been fitted also in writing?  If not get that confirmed right now!

Your house isn't falling down. Just the porch!  Yes it is a big deal and it is a big porch!
Crest should be fixing this with a column they have for as yet unoccupied homes right now, not expecting you to wait until they can get one delivered.
Yes it is amazing that no one on this site thought what is keeping the porch from falling down. I am surprised it didn't fall down during tiling!

As for you selling the house - that is not of Crest's concern. Whether you can even sell your house even in tip top condition, in this economic meltdown is also questionable.

You should write to crest CEO at their head office and insist that it is dealt with as a priority and take to social media and write to your local paper about this.
ASs you can see it is happened before (Charles Church Home)

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