Legal action against developer?

LongoBongo

Hi, has anyone one here ever taken legal action against a big-name developer for not completing works in a timely manner? I won’t bore you with the full details but we moved into our house in mid 2016 with the estate 75% complete. I think all houses were lived in by the end of 2018.

Since then we’ve had 6 years of constant work as they replace all of the sewers on the site and then rebuild the roads. It’s not a big site (150 houses) but they’ve only ever had 4 or 5 unsupervised contractors slowly plodding through the work. There are constant unannounced road closures and different temporary surfaces. There’s daily deliveries and plant moving about the site all day.

They gave us £500 4 years ago for compensation for works directly outside our houses but 4 years have passed and they still disrupt us on a daily basis. I don’t think anyone on the estate would have bought their house if they’d known.

There’s still no end in sight, they told us they’d finished the drainage works before Christmas but now they’ve shut the roads to replace the drainage works they’d just said was done to the highest standards!

Just looking for some advice if there’s anything we can do in respect of compensation for the misery they’ve put us through. Thanks for reading.

Edit – I don’t specifically want to chase compensation – I’d rather them just finish the works, something they’ve demonstrated they’re totally incapable of over a 6 year period. Financial compensation seems the next best thing and last resort.

Section62

LongoBongo said:

Hi, has anyone one here ever taken legal action against a big-name developer for not completing works in a timely manner? I won’t bore you with the full details but we moved into our house in mid 2016 with the estate 75% complete. I think all houses were lived in by the end of 2018.

Since then we’ve had 6 years of constant work as they replace all of the sewers on the site and then rebuild the roads. It’s not a big site (150 houses) but they’ve only ever had 4 or 5 unsupervised contractors slowly plodding through the work. There are constant unannounced road closures and different temporary surfaces. There’s daily deliveries and plant moving about the site all day.

They gave us £500 4 years ago for compensation for works directly outside our houses but 4 years have passed and they still disrupt us on a daily basis. I don’t think anyone on the estate would have bought their house if they’d known.

There’s still no end in sight, they told us they’d finished the drainage works before Christmas but now they’ve shut the roads to replace the drainage works they’d just said was done to the highest standards!

Just looking for some advice if there’s anything we can do in respect of compensation for the misery they’ve put us through. Thanks for reading.

Edit – I don’t specifically want to chase compensation – I’d rather them just finish the works, something they’ve demonstrated they’re totally incapable of over a 6 year period. Financial compensation seems the next best thing and last resort.

You need to have a read of your contract when you purchased - the developer has probably written in enough get-outs to allow them to carry on doing work on the development that a legal claim probably won't get you anywhere.  Compensation paid is more likely about them hoping to avoid negative publicity on/in (social)media rather than there being a legal basis for it.

If enough of your neighbours feel the same then maybe ask for a meeting with the site manager and let it be known that you may go to the media if this doesn't finally get sorted soon.

LongoBongo

Thanks Section62, as ever, always helpful. Yeah, media attention is always a heated discussion on the estate FB page, some think it will affect their property value seemingly oblivious to the fact that 6 years of additional building works has already done that, it really boils my p!ss. Probably about time to start ignoring them.

I believe there is some sort of industrywide compensation arrangement for this type of thing but this is capped at £500, which they’ve already given me and others. The problem is when would that end? They paid it 4 years ago – does that mean they can carry on annoying us for an entire lifetime? (Rhetorical question – not expecting an answer to that).