5 Year Old 'New Build' Ongoing Snagging Issues

henrygregory

Looking for some advice.

• Purchased shared ownership property five years ago. 

• The housing association involved is monumentally awful in every way. 

• I immediately (within the first month) got in touch to make the HA aware of the snagging issues I had. 
• I heard nothing, the list grew. Some minor issues were resolved, but bigger ones left. 
• I had to make several formal complaints as the outstanding snagging issues had failed to be recitified past the two year snagging defect period. 
• The builder refused to put the issues right despite my having passed all of the relevant issues to the HA in the first few months/weeks. 
• One of the man sngagging issues was the fact that slates were falling off of the roof and the guttering was leaking. 

The leaking gutter and roof was seen to however, slates continued to fall and the gutters continued to leak. Almost every other neighbour in my street has had exactly the same problem. 
I have tired several times to contact the roofing company who installed the roofing and gutter and I have ascertained in the past few months that the company has now gone bust. 
I contacted the house builder who is not interested as they sold the property to the HA and I bought it from the HA. The builder told me the HA is responsible, not them.

The HA (after several months of chasing and being pushed from pillar to post) has said as I own the house, it is my responsibility and broken guttering and fallen roof slates (all reported on the first month I moved in as defects) constitute as normal wear and tear so I will need to resolve these issues myself.

I do not find this acceptable and would like to know if anyone has any advice on what I can do next. I have had to repeately chase the housing assoication over a period of months, never getting responses and being given absoloute nonsense when I do eventually get a response.

Any help would be greately appreciated. This has gone on for so long, it is now autumn so having missing roof slates and not working gutters is a serious problem. 

MultiFuelBurner

Did you receive an NHBC warranty with the house? I would raise a complaint especially with the roof.

chanz4

nhbc warranty aint worth the paper written on, tell the HA will take them to court

henrygregory

MultiFuelBurner said:

Did you receive an NHBC warranty with the house? I would raise a complaint especially with the roof.

Yes and as @chanz4 said, it is a waste of time and usually involves issues which cost in the thousands to put right. I don't think this will be that costly, it is the principle. It hasn't been resolve, the HA are utter $*** and I don't see why I should have to pay to put right what was never put right when it should have been by them.

I am wondering if seeing as I have given the HA chance after chance, I should find a reputable company, get them to do to the work, pay them and then take the HA to the small claims court. But unsure on my chances of winning.

MultiFuelBurner

We have made two successful NHBC claims in the past so without putting in a claim with your own evidence of issues and communications then I can't see a way forward.

The issues is with your builder and the builder is not doing anything so that's your only avenue of recourse.

henrygregory

MultiFuelBurner said:

We have made two successful NHBC claims in the past so without putting in a claim with your own evidence of issues and communications then I can't see a way forward.

The issues is with your builder and the builder is not doing anything so that's your only avenue of recourse.

I agree, but the builder told me as I didn't buy the property from them, which is correct, I need to deal with the housing association. I can see their point of view as I didn't buy it from the builder, the builder sold it to the HA and I purchased it from the HA. 

Edit.. from the NHBC website: 

My house is a Housing Association or private rental property

If you have a problem with your home, you should report it to your landlord, managing agent or housing association in the first instance.

eddddy

What warranty did you get with the building? Was it NHBC?


If it was an NHBC warranty, I think there's some confusion.

With an NHBC warranty there is a 2 year builder's warranty. i.e. Any snags that you identify within the first 2 years should be fixed by the builder - not NHBC.

You seem to be saying that you reported some snags during the initial 2 years, and they haven't been fixed, so you potentially have a claim.

You need to read your warranty documentation to see who the claim is against - the HA or the builder.
 
Did you follow the instructions in your warranty for reporting the snags. For example, was it right to report them to the HA, rather than the builder? If you reported them to the 'wrong' people, that could scupper your claim.

MultiFuelBurner

henrygregory said:

MultiFuelBurner said:

We have made two successful NHBC claims in the past so without putting in a claim with your own evidence of issues and communications then I can't see a way forward.

The issues is with your builder and the builder is not doing anything so that's your only avenue of recourse.

I agree, but the builder told me as I didn't buy the property from them, which is correct, I need to deal with the housing association. I can see their point of view as I didn't buy it from the builder, the builder sold it to the HA and I purchased it from the HA. 

Edit.. from the NHBC website: 

My house is a Housing Association or private rental property

If you have a problem with your home, you should report it to your landlord, managing agent or housing association in the first instance.

So you have reported it to your HA in the first instance and as you are getting nowhere see what the NHBC say your options are. You live there and the warranty is valid they must act imo

fullyrendered

Use the HA's formal complaints process. If they maintain their position and don't sort it, you can go through two stages with their in-house complaints procedure, and then escalate to the Housing Ombudsman.

Stick to facts, draw up a clear timeline of events and communication. Good luck.

Postik

MultiFuelBurner said:

So you have reported it to your HA in the first instance and as you are getting nowhere see what the NHBC say your options are. You live there and the warranty is valid they must act imo

The problem is the NHBC have a minimum claim amount (£1500 in my case) and they'll also say that gutter leaks and loose roof tiles are just a maintenance issue.

I'm not saying it's impossible to argue the case but unless it's a major fault I generally don't think the warranty is worth the paper it's written on.

My 5 year old house had leaking gutters and I believe it had been leaking from day one due to poor fitting and a downpipe not being connected up. I paid out of my own pocket in the end to have it refitted because it cost less than £1500 and I think it'd have taken far too long to argue the case with the NHBC in any event.

In my case discovering some of the issues with the gutter involved getting on and doing the job. It's not like I could get anyone to write up a report as to what was wrong with it, because by the time they went up a ladder and started to dismantle bits to figure out what was wrong, they might as well have rectified the faults at the same time.

eddddy

Postik said:

The problem is the NHBC have a minimum claim amount (£1500 in my case) and they'll also say that gutter leaks and loose roof tiles are just a maintenance issue.

I think you're talking about section 3 of the NHBC warranty - which would apply to problems reported in years 3 to 10.

The OP says they reported the problems in years 1 to 2 - so section 2 of the NHBC warranty applies.

So, for example, there is no minimum claim amount. 

And the OP seems to suggest that  roof tiles were slipping and gutters were leaking within 1 month. So that's not really a maintenance issue.


An example NHBC warranty from Jan 2023:   https://www.nhbc.co.uk/binaries/content/assets/nhbc/homeowners/find-your-policy/ao-policy-booklet.pdf