New Build Repairs What Should I Do?

Chippy17

Good Afternoon,

I'm looking for some advice on what's acceptable and what I should be doing next.

I recently moved into my new build 6 weeks ago, and on my pre move in
inspection I snagged the staircase as creaking. This was not rectified
prior to my move in and the rectification work had to take place over 3/4 days post occupation, which involved cutting a hole in my kitchen
ceiling ripping my staircase carpet up and putting all that right. As a
goodwill gesture they fitted an outside tap to makeup for some of the
time lost waiting at home for repairs.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, I buy a piece of furniture for my hallway and place it against the wall to find it's not flat and bevelled in the middle, which now has a joiner pencilled in for next week to cut a hole in the wall to find
out why its bevelled. 

These are 2 extremely intrusive levels of repair and I don't even know what the rectification work is yet to fix
the bevelled wall.

Now my question is how do I express my disappointment at the quality of workmanship and what I have had to
endure, and realistically what should I be looking for in way of compensation?

Or am I being harsh?

RelievedSheff

What should you expect?

Two more years of snagging and the developers doing one job at a time.

We loved our new build, but the first 18 months were a nightmare of taking time off work to get things fixed and rectified.

You won't get any compensation, if you look at the paperwork you have signed when you bought the house it will have clauses regarding finishes and repairs and what to expect. At the end of the day it is a hand built commodity so it wont be perfect.

We ended up doing a lot of the fixes ourselves after we got fed up of waiting for the developers. It worked out better in the long run as we could guarantee the quality of the work that was being done.

whizzywoo

Welcome to the world of new build houses.

We moved into our new build house in July 2025. About 2 weeks ago we finally signed off on the reported snagging faults. But this was after a year of chasing the builder's customer care office and site manager on an almost daily level. Luckily the Site Office is next door but one to our house so the Site Manager has to pass our house every day and my husband used lie in wait for him!

We had numerous faults and they got fixed one at a time after much delay and chasing. Very often the fault was much worse after the tradesmen said they had fixed it. Eventually my husband started fixing the smaller faults himself and made a much better job of them.

The biggest fault was missing insulation and meant three rows of roof tiles coming off, 2 weeks of scaffolding and different workmen, none of whom seemed to know what to do.

I don't think any of our walls are perfectly flat or plumb, you learn to live with it. On the whole we've not done so bad as several of the bay windows and porches on our estate aren't tied into the walls and are now subsiding. The residents of at least two of the properties have had to move out whilst work is done to repair the faults.

Bigphil1474

A family member bought a new build about 3 years ago, they had a list of around 170 snags that needed sorting, mostly minor things though. The builders got them all sorted eventually, and they love their house. I think it's just the reality of mass produced new housing. Just don't hold back, because after the first 2 years you have essentially no chance of any minor fixes being rectified.

Tommaso46

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82114207#Comment_82114207

WOW - missing insulation is a big one !

whizzywoo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82116937#Comment_82116937

Well yes, but it was only in the lower corners. The porch and the "family room" which were both single storey.

It was our professional snagger that pointed it out to us and detailed it on his report. For some reason something called a cavity sock hadn't been inserted into the cavities. Consequently the insulation material (tiny little polystyrene balls) had blown out through the ventilation holes in the soffits.

All rectified now but it took a lot of perseverance on our part to get developer to fix it.

I would recommend everyone to use a professional snagger as many of the faults are not things that you would normally recognise.