Valley House Charlton - Council Flat Delays

Feddy.Ipswitch

Hello All,

I am Alisa. I new here but have been reading this forum for years. Me and my husband have recently been offered a 3 bed Housing Association Flat – the development is Valley House, in Charlton London.

We have been waiting 6 years for this. I have 3 kids living in a one bedroom HA flat and we are delighted that we have been offered this property.

The thing is, we were offered this property in April 2021. When they did, they told us the property will be ready to move in to within a month. Since, they have just moved the goal post on a monthly basis with the excuse that “there are issues with the Housing Association and the Contractors”. They told me that they are working to resolve this but we are now in September 2021, 5 months after being offered the property and we have not received a move in date.

The property is a new build.

Has anyone been through similar situation? I guess I just need emotional encouragement, but I would hate to have to wait another year – missing out on other property we could bid for and move in to had we turned this down due to the delays.

The 3 bed flat is lovely and everything we wanted, I just get depressed that its not going to happen for me and that I will be forever stuck in this 1 bed flat with kids.

The update this month from HA is that they still don’t have a move in date due to ongoing contractual issues.

Let me know your thoughts and experiences if any!

Alisa

Feddy.Ipswitch

It appears I used my hubbys account, sorry. But the question still remains if anyone has any thoughts   

Soot2006

Unfortunately, new build delays are well documented on this site. Everything has been delayed by material shortages, difficulty in hiring decent tradespeople, etc ... So you're in the same position as if you had purchase this house and were now waiting for its completion. As such, my advice is the same: If you want this particular place and you say it's everything you dream of, then it's worth waiting for. It may be 2 months, it may be 10, no one can tell you that, but once you've moved in, this stress will feel like a distant dream.  If the wait is more stressful than the thought of losing this particular house, then consider alternative housing options.

Jude57

I'm with @Soot2006 on this. It will hopefully be worth the wait to have a brand new home suitable for your family's needs. Construction has suffered enormously during the pandemic, and was shut down completely for many months. By the time it started up again, contractors had difficulty recruiting as trades had moved on to new, paying jobs. In my block, extensive common area works that should have finished a over year ago are going to take many more months to be completed, and the workmen are working flat out on longer days than usual.

It's no consolation when you're desperate to move but I think OP needs to balance getting out of their current address quicker, into a possibly less attractive place or resigning themselves to a potentially long wait. Personally, if the flat really is all you've wanted, I'd be prepared to wait, but I'd be chasing the HA every week. And insisting on dealing with someone at a senior level. I've found that front line HA staff, while very well meaning, tend not to have much insight into these more complex issues.

HampshireH

Jude57 said:

I'm with @Soot2006 on this. It will hopefully be worth the wait to have a brand new home suitable for your family's needs. Construction has suffered enormously during the pandemic, and was shut down completely for many months. By the time it started up again, contractors had difficulty recruiting as trades had moved on to new, paying jobs. In my block, extensive common area works that should have finished a over year ago are going to take many more months to be completed, and the workmen are working flat out on longer days than usual.

It's no consolation when you're desperate to move but I think OP needs to balance getting out of their current address quicker, into a possibly less attractive place or resigning themselves to a potentially long wait. Personally, if the flat really is all you've wanted, I'd be prepared to wait, but I'd be chasing the HA every week. And insisting on dealing with someone at a senior level. I've found that front line HA staff, while very well meaning, tend not to have much insight into these more complex issues.

I think the OP just needs to be patient and gain a bit more knowledge about new builds and delays (which they seem to be doing)

Going to senior level of staff won't achieve anything nor will chasing weekly if they are provided with updates when they are available.

They will just get told there is no update and they will be in touch when there is.

Best asking for one comprensive update. Make the call/Email armed with relevant questions they want a reply on such as

*When is the revised handover date from developers?

*If it's a contractual issue are all works completed pending the paperwork?

That sort of thing.

OP doesn't indicate how far the build has got.  But contractual issues could cause quite lengthy delays depending on the severity.