Housing association decant

Cc23830

Good evening. I don't really sign up to sites for advice but currently at a dead end and was wondering if anyone can help.
Back in December 2018 we left a housing association house in a mutual exchange to another property with a different association. Before contracts were signed I brought up a crack on the side of the new build property. On contract signing I was told these were cosmetic. Me, my wife and my three children moved house. After two weeks of bringing up the crack which was getting bigger, somebody from a surveying department came out on December 23rd from the local council. He told us to leave immediately as it was a danger to us and the public. Our house was falling down.
We were decanted to another house within the housing association while the nhbc and landlords worked out was going on. Our rent was very high and livewest insisted we carry on paying for the decanted house while in this temporary house. We argued that the house we were put in is smaller and not where we wanted to live at all. They agreed we pay 60% full rent until we move back. Eventually.
In April the NHBC finally tendered out the repairs and the developers of the property, Kier, agreed to repair the property. We were given a timescale of 8 weeks. It is now August, 20 weeks after they started and the scaffolding is still up. The repairs have started but not been completed. We got told in June it would definitely be August 12th we would be back in and today I received a call where I was told it will probably be before Christmas. This isn't fair at all. We had newspapers enquire about the story but I turned them all down. We left our safe lovely house before the exchange for this mess. The reason for the move was my child has special needs and the village was closer to all of her schools and specialists. But obviously this decanted property is not what we signed up for.
Is there ANYTHING we can do? We hate it in this temporary house. Does anybody have any suggestions as I just want to leave. Thanks

HampshireH

Follow the complaints procedure

pinkteapot

As above, plus accept the newspapers’ interest. Yes, your face might end up on the ‘Angry People in Local Newspapers’ Facebook page, but the media contacting the HA for comment can help to focus their attention...

Chandler85

The complaint you have has to focus on who told you the crack was cosmetic and nothing else initially. If the Housing Association or Kier said it was cosmetic then you could argue this is there fault, if the person who you did an exchange with said it, then I'm not sure where you can go with it.


The time taken to complete the repair may or may not be excessive, I'm sure you would rather go back to a definitely fixed and safe property later then a halffinished repair early.


All you can do is follow the complaints stages, but you have been decanted to a house with reduced rent because it is a smaller house.



People whose homes are flooded are often put in a caravan by insurance companies and still have to pay their full mortgage for a house they can't live it and that can be for a year. I know this isn't exactly the same, but the housing association as providing better alternative accomodation then some places.



If you plan to stay in this new property for 10+ years then you might just have to stick it out and jump through complaint procedures hoops, but you have to think what you preferred outcome is, they can't give you the old house back. Do you want to be moved to a different house permanently, though that may be a longer wait? Do you want compensation for not being in your agreed home on top of the reduced rent?

Norman_Castle

In April the NHBC finally tendered out the repairs and the developers of the property, Kier, agreed to repair the property. We were given a timescale of 8 weeks. It is now August, 20 weeks after they started and the scaffolding is still up.

If its a problem with a new build its up to the HA to hound the developer. Work with the HA to get a resolution. You haven't said what you've done so far but using the HA complaints procedure is likely to be the best place to start.

DCFC79

Do the complaint in writing OP.

mobileron

Just thank the Gods you dont own the house,what would u have done then.

Norman_Castle

mobileron wrote: »

Just thank the Gods you dont own the house,what would u have done then.

Contacted the NHBC directly.

Cc23830

I just feel like it's been lie after lie.
It was the housing officer on contract signing day that told us it was cosmetic. The previous tenant had no idea the crack was there. We moved in and found all the windows when opened wouldn't shut which kind of gave us an idea something wasn't right

Norman_Castle

Cc23830 wrote: »

I just feel like it's been lie after lie.
It was the housing officer on contract signing day that told us it was cosmetic. The previous tenant had no idea the crack was there. We moved in and found all the windows when opened wouldn't shut which kind of gave us an idea something wasn't right

A housing officer will be clueless with regards to the structure. As a tenant you will unfortunately not be the priority. The buyer of the property, the HA will be keen for their asset to be repaired properly and the developer will want to constrain their costs and is likely to be dealing with various subcontractors.

Its an unfortunate situation with your only option being to keep prodding the HA. Good luck.

G_M

A Housing Officer is not qualified to judge. If he was qualified, he'd be a surveyor or structural engineer, not a council Housing Officer!

To be honest, claims against builders and/or NHBC always take time-always longer than anticipated or desired.

Compare any major project that goes over budget and/or over schedule, and then add more time for blame allocation and ageement of cost allocation.

The HA has provided an alternative, at a resonable cost. True, it's not where /what you wanted, but it's a fair alternative. There could have been far worse scenarios!

As others have said, escalate appropriately but also be patient.....