Raised floor boards - new build flat

xsor

Hi everyone,

I had some interest in the flat, and put down a £1000 deposit.

We just done a snagging session on it, and my dad noticed the floorboards were slightly raised.

One of the partners (also the developer), said floors are not covered in the warranty..?

Is it their legal requirement to provide adequate flooring? As if it is raised now.. I can only imagine it gets worse much quicker than expected maybe?

He said he did leave 12mm gaps etc around the room for expansion..

I'm no builder or expert in property buying laws, is this something they have to fix or can ignore? Or should I pull out etc?

xsor

Can't exactly post a link as I'm new..

But it looks like this:

Lunchbox

Flooring won’t be included in any long term NHBC warranty, but they are absolutely covered by the shorter (1 or 2 year) defects period. Check your contract for details of the defects period and how to report them. It does depend how much they are ‘raised’ as there will be tolerances that they are allowed.

ProDave

https://i.stack.imgur.com/PyJHY.jpg

That is dreadful.

It's not a fault in the underlying floor, that is probably chipboard and flat.

It looks to be the cheapest of the cheap laminate floor coverings laid badly. I would rather just have the bare chipboard and do my own thing than accept that.

Definitely raise it as a snag, but even if they manage to flatten it, it will still be very cheap laminate

xsor

@Lunchbox, thanks for that - they're with BuildZone warranty, and I couldn't find anything on their site about this. But I contacted them via email and asked my solicitors to check what my warranty covers too etc.

@ProDave, the image isn't exactly my flat, just one on the internet that I found that looks like it, I should have took a picture, but the developer made it sound normal.

But when searching online, it's said to be normal in summer due to moist/humidity, whereas winter should be less?

I'll try and book another viewing and take a few pictures, and hopefully I could get more feedback from you guys

Thanks!

SuboJvR

It shouldn't be there, no.

Tread carefully, no pun intended.

New builds should have both the NHBC 10 Year warranty for the main structural things, and also a warranty provided by the builder that covers other things - the home should be defects, this can include everything from a door that sits skew, or paintwork that's not quite finished properly, and flooring that isn't to standard.

It sounds as though they perhaps didn't let the flooring acclimatise prior to laying it.

There's no requirement on them to sell you a house with flooring, indeed plenty of new builds don't come with it (I am unsure of flats, mind). However the fact that they have put it down means it should be covered by the builders warranty.

If there isn't a builder's warranty I would be seriously considering walking away...!

societys_child

I'd be taking it up. It's dreadful.

Or tell the builder to.

AdrianC

That's comically bad.

poppy10_2

That's really poor. Run a mile if they don't fix it

DaftyDuck

Run a mile anyway. You can see the floor....

.... you can't see the one hundred botch jobs under the floor, walls, ceilings, behind kitchen cupboards....

One thing having carp work in a house someone has lived in and made do... Or low quality DIY jobs they've done. But, in a builder-done new build or return, it sets alarm bells ringing.

Although you'll probably find they have miswired those too, and the shower will turn on instead....

xsor

Okay, I just got back from viewing the place for 30mins, it does NOT look as bad as the picture shown above.

But the bump/raise is definitely noticeable when walking over it.. it's like trapped air?

If they were to fix this, would they only need to do it by sorting out a few boards? Or do they need to do the whole thing?

And bloody hell, it creaks a lot - compared to other flats, they don't creak as much.