Dishonest developer advice

eddddy

frowner wrote: »

We have sought legal advice through our home insurance and they have advised us that this is a matter for the Small Claims Court if we cannot resolve it directly with the developer.

Did the legal adviser read your contract with the developer and advise you that you had a strong case?

Or was it just a generic statement like "if you want to make a claim, it would be a matter for the small claims court"?

What does your contract say about a timescale for installing the stoves?

Similarly, what does your warranty contract say about stained carpets?

To win in court, you'll have to be very specific about the terms of the contract that they have breached.

SmashedAvacado

frowner wrote: »

Thank you, the developer has already advised us they will not be replacing these due to our apparent delaying of completion costing them in interest fees.

I think you are missing some key information from this thread. What happened at completion. Were you late in completing? What was agreed at completion in relation to lateness, the carpets, the stoves? presumably you didnt ignore all of these issues, complete and then decide to work out what to do?

Fire_Fox

How much of the recent to-ing and fro-ing is in writing (letter or e-mail)?

need_an_answer

frowner wrote: »

Thank you, the developer has already advised us they will not be replacing these due to our apparent delaying of completion costing them in interest fees.

Were you the cause of a delay to completion?

Do you accept that you were and how long was the delay?

Potentially the developer could request interest payments to be taken into account so that is indeed something for you to consider when making the claim.

I guess it comes down to how long the delay was and if the cost of rectifying the carpets is equal or greater than the interest payments.

How stained are the carpets,have you tried to clean them...I guess the question is do they warrant a total replacement or could they be fixed if professionally done?

frowner

eddddy wrote: »

Did the legal adviser read your contract with the developer and advise you that you had a strong case?

Or was it just a generic statement like "if you want to make a claim, it would be a matter for the small claims court"?

What does your contract say about a timescale for installing the stoves?

Similarly, what does your warranty contract say about stained carpets?

To win in court, you'll have to be very specific about the terms of the contract that they have breached.

It was more of a generic statement they didn’t read any contract. There wasn't a timescale for the stoves just derailed that they had been ordered and were awaiting installation (obviously that was hugely naive on our part). I can’t find anything in the contracts regarding the carpets. Doesn’t sound hopeful then.

frowner

SmashedAvacado wrote: »

I think you are missing some key information from this thread. What happened at completion. Were you late in completing? What was agreed at completion in relation to lateness, the carpets, the stoves? presumably you didnt ignore all of these issues, complete and then decide to work out what to do?

Sorry for missing out key information it wasn’t intentional. Completion was delayed due to a delay with the local authority search, nothing to do with us. Stoves were apparently on order awaiting installation, carpets were to be steam cleaned after we moved is as part of snagging (which they were but it made the problem worse as it left a lightened almost bleached patch). No we didnt just ignore the issues and complete and then decide what we were going to do, we were led to believe the stoves were on order and the carpets were to be steam cleaned.

frowner

Fire_Fox wrote: »

How much of the recent to-ing and fro-ing is in writing (letter or e-mail)?

Mostly all via email apart from a phone call this week which has prompted this as they admitted the fires hadn’t even been ordered yet and that it’s not a priority for them (but we obviously don’t have that in writing)

frowner

need_an_answer wrote: »

Were you the cause of a delay to completion?

Do you accept that you were and how long was the delay?

Potentially the developer could request interest payments to be taken into account so that is indeed something for you to consider when making the claim.

I guess it comes down to how long the delay was and if the cost of rectifying the carpets is equal or greater than the interest payments.

How stained are the carpets,have you tried to clean them...I guess the question is do they warrant a total replacement or could they be fixed if professionally done?

No we were not the cause and don’t accept that we were, the delay was caused by the local Authority search outstanding. The carpets were professionally steam cleaned but looked worse after as it has left a lightened/ bleached patch (the steam clean company said this often happens if someone has tried to clean them before with an oxy type carpet cleaner)

ThePants999

That doesn't make any sense - the searches would have been done before exchange, not between exchange and completion.

If the developer wanted you to exchange within a certain time of reservation, and you didn't because of the searches, they would have been entitled to cancel your reservation, but they didn't, so they have absolutely no comeback now if exchange happened later than they'd like.

If completion happened exactly at the point agreed on exchange, but that was later than they wanted because of the delay exchanging, again they have absolutely no comeback on that.

They only have any comeback if, once the house was finished, they served a notice to complete, and you didn't complete within the required timeframe, and I can't see how searches could have caused that.

frowner

ThePants999 wrote: »

That doesn't make any sense - the searches would have been done before exchange, not between exchange and completion.

If the developer wanted you to exchange within a certain time of reservation, and you didn't because of the searches, they would have been entitled to cancel your reservation, but they didn't, so they have absolutely no comeback now if exchange happened later than they'd like.

If completion happened exactly at the point agreed on exchange, but that was later than they wanted because of the delay exchanging, again they have absolutely no comeback on that.

They only have any comeback if, once the house was finished, they served a notice to complete, and you didn't complete within the required timeframe, and I can't see how searches could have caused that.

It was the Local Authority search that held things up, this was needed for exchange then we completed a few days after as that was the last thing we were all waiting on. Sorry for not explaining everything clearly.