House with 'South' Facing garden

RossFTB

Hi All,

Looking for bit of advice, i recently bought a new build bellway home. I reserved the property before they were onsite as i wanted a south facing garden.

The house is now almost complete and meant to get the keys on friday, but i was donw recently to look at the garden (see what my options are) at 7:00pm and there is little to no sun in it.... upon checking with my phones built-in compass i am getting a East, towards North reading.

I am gutted as the reason i went for this plot was the garden. Do i have grounds for a complaint? On the site plan, the garden clearly shows as South - slightly towards the East.

Looking for a bit of advice.

princeofpounds

If the garden has not been built in the right place, yes of course! How on earth does a garden swing ~100 degrees? Is the house pointing in a different direction too?

Although maybe you were just holding the plan at the wrong angle...

You should be raising this with your solicitor too. Let's just hope you didn't go with the solicitor 'recommended' by the builder (although if you did they still should treat you fairly but you might find they don't).

PenguinJim

Does the garden actually show as South, slightly towards the East, on the site plan? Or does it show as "down, slightly towards the right"? Make sure that the site plan identifies which way is North!

Goldiegirl

So you bought off plan?

Doesn't a plan normally have an arrow pointing north, so you can check the direction?

Unless they've completely switched the angle of the property (unlikely, due to things like sewers, access roads, etc), then I can't see there's anything you can do.

Why not take the plan, and walk the site, making sure that everything is where it should be on the plan. If yes, then you either get used to it, or if it's an insurmountable problem, sell up.

If the house was not built as shown on the plan, then maybe you would have some sort of case

needabed

South facing front garden perhaps...

MoneyMate

needabed wrote: »

South facing front garden perhaps...

Sounds that way to me.

irishjohn

my garden faces almost south but by 7pm the sun is moving well towards west and a lot of my garden has become shaded.

pinkteapot

Our garden is south, very slightly east (as your plan showed) and we don't get evening sun. The sun sets in the west so it comes diagonally across the front of our house by 7pm. I wouldn't trust your phone compass. Try a real compass if you think it's wrong...

jjlandlord

Can confirm pinkteapot's comment as that's the situation accross our street: they have south facing, slightly east and don't get the sun in the evening in summer.
We have north, slightly west, and get it.

RossFTB wrote: »

upon checking with my phones built-in compass i am getting a East, towards North reading.

What is this reading for?
Sounds like an east-west plot.

RossFTB

As I said I will need to double check with a proper compass, but yes bough off plan as when I reserved the property, there were another 9 people after me if I didn't go through with it. I'm not as silly to say it was south on plan without the plan showing a North symbol.

Other than the lack of sun in the evening it is a very desirable house in a desirable area so won't be 'selling up'. However if i check and it is not as stated on the plan then i will be raising the complaint with the house builder.

Soot2006

I just downloaded a compass app and depending on where I stand on my property it gives me different readings, so I wouldn't put much faith in that!