Claiming against developer

americanv8

I'm looking for some advice here.
I live in a new house built by one of the big housing developers, around 2 years ago we had torrential rain (like the past few days) and our garage flooded. It became immediately evident that living at the end of the cul de sac at the bottom of a slight incline wasn't a good idea in terms of water run off. Anyway i had to argue with the developers and showed them photos of my garage under a foot of water, they eventually agreed to replace a couple of things that were damaged & install a field drain along the front of the garage.
Fast forward to Thursday 16th July, its an absolute monsoon outside, the drain half way up the road is blocked (and has been for as long as i can remember), the water is running in torrents down to our garage & since the estate is still a building site there's mud and allsorts coming down. My field drain blocks & fills up, the actual drain blocks and fills up then inevitabley the garage fills up with muddy water again. Seveal things wrecked this time, lawnmower, garden vac, kids toys & the skimmed surface of the garage floor has broken up.
I guess i have to make clear at this point that the developer still owns the roads because the estate isn't finished so roads & drains are not managed by the council.
I had to call out the emergency drain people who dug out a ton of mud from the drain in the road and discovered that when the drain was installed they hadn't pulled out the rubber plug to open the drain up to the pipes!!! effectively the drain was a big bucket and nothing else therefore the water has nowhere to go other than to my drain. They checked my drain and discovered to my utter amazement exactly the same thing, after slopping out a load of mud he all of a sudden pulled out a big rubber plug and immediately all the water drained away.
So i now have a situation where i want to claim against the developer for everything thats damaged in my garage, its purely down to their complete incompetance that this has happened and i dont want to have to claim on my insurance as that'll increase my premium next year for something thats not my fault. I still have the rubber plug from my drain so i can provide evidence there, the plug in the street drain is half covered with concrete so couldn't be pulled out therefore that one is still just a bucket.
Any advice on this would be appreciated

Debt_Free_Chick

You need evidence to demonstrate that this latest incident is due to the developer's negligence in solving the original issue. So a written report from the emergency drain people setting out what they dealt with would be a start.

You should also consider making a claim on your own insurance, blaming the developer and leaving your insurance company to sort this out with the developer.

americanv8

Debt_Free_Chick wrote: »

You need evidence to demonstrate that this latest incident is due to the developer's negligence in solving the original issue. So a written report from the emergency drain people setting out what they dealt with would be a start.

You should also consider making a claim on your own insurance, blaming the developer and leaving your insurance company to sort this out with the developer.

I know the guy who runs the drain company so i've spoken to him, he said if he gives me a written report with their findings then the developer will likely never give him anymore work so he cant. Although he did say their findings would be on the job report. We had a guy from builders head office yesterday who came and had a poke about then said they'd have to wait for the report before they decide what to do. I have the rubber plug they pulled out of my drain that was blocking the water so there's some evidence there, the other drain pot is full again after todays rain & the rubber plug is still in there because the guy couldn't get it out.
If i make a claim on my insurance then its likely my premium will go up next year because of it, i dont really think thats fair given the circumstances.

ABH_3

americanv8 wrote: »

I know the guy who runs the drain company so i've spoken to him, he said if he gives me a written report with their findings then the developer will likely never give him anymore work so he cant. Although he did say their findings would be on the job report. We had a guy from builders head office yesterday who came and had a poke about then said they'd have to wait for the report before they decide what to do. I have the rubber plug they pulled out of my drain that was blocking the water so there's some evidence there, the other drain pot is full again after todays rain & the rubber plug is still in there because the guy couldn't get it out.
If i make a claim on my insurance then its likely my premium will go up next year because of it, i dont really think thats fair given the circumstances.

Get another photo, send it to the Builder again and ensure he knows the situation with the other drain and how it will infact fill up again, owing to your 'mate' not being able to pull the plug out. He may find he's motivated more to help in future, the builder may not use his services again if he can't do a simple job twice on the same day

He sounds quite reasonable, so he's not trying to evade his responsibilities, so you just need to inform him of the fact that the drains now partially work, but the guy he hired couldn't fully complete the task. So send them a photograph of the 'plug' and the water if it's still there.

HTH