House of horrors

ClaireMin

Hello, our house is 5 years old
and has significant cracking, which it turns out is due to the foundations not being dug deep enough considering the soil type and surrounding trees. The building control records confirm the same foundation depth as the trial pits and it’s between half and a meter too shallow compared to what should have been done. We are slowly working through a process with the engineer and trying to get our 10 year warranty to take responsibility, but my question is how could this have happened and who is responsible for those initial foundation depth calculations being correct? It’s just staggering to me that this situation is even possible and am bemused that building control didn’t double check the maths on the original designs, but perhaps I have failed to understand the responsibilities properly. Thanks. 

MikeJXE

It’s all about marking you own homework now days 

daveyjp

Who signed off building control paperwork?  Private or Council?

TELLIT01

Many developers are permitted to complete all their own building regs compliance checks.  As MikeJXE says, marking their own homework.

ClaireMin

Thanks everyone. It was a private building control company.  So does this mean that even if a private building control signs off on a property and the developer buys a 10 year structural guarantee product, the developer hasn’t necessarily passed on their full potential liability to a claim if they have fundamentally failed to build in accordance with regs in the first place? Thanks