floors in new house

Oct 07, 2005 31 Replies

It may have nothing to do with your problem but there were houses near here with a similar problem some years ago. The downstairs was open plan and there was meant to be a 12" x 12" main joist across the house that the other floor joists rested on. The builder had fitted a 10" x 10" (or worse) and the upstairs floor had sagged, leaving inch gaps under the stud walls in their centres upstairs. This was eventually sorted under the NHBC guarantee (as they were not built to plan) AFAICR.

Good uck, after 16 months you must be a bit upset (in spite of our clever ways on this ng, most of us would be too!).

Including storage costs for your carpets. Not to mention wear and tear on yourself!

Threaten (in writing I guess) to charge 'em £10 ago for each letter and call as an administration charge. Then send them an invoice for those too!

Alex.

Having lived in a Redrow house myself, you have my sympathy...

I think that if I were in the same situation I would write to them informing them that theyhave n days to make a final repair, and if they fail to deliver in that time you will hire a contractor to do it and seek to recover the cost via a small claims action.

Make sure you have good evidence (photos etc) of the state of the floor as it is now, plus copies of any letters you have received from carpet fitters etc that say the floor is unsuitable.

You can process a small claims action for amounts up to £5000 on the web these days for a small fixed fee.

The question is, can you do that in Scotland?

Good question... I don't know... (I did not realise the OP was in Scotland)

If you do have some option like the small claims procedure then it is supposedly relatively hassle free. You submit your evidence in advance in a pack, and it is up to the defendent to argue against. If they failt to respond they lose by default.

In message , " snipped-for-privacy@postmaster.co.uk" writes

A small claims procedure (if applicable in your case is not expensive, or difficult)

if you choose that route. You havent told us enough about the unevenness to know if this would be a dead easy job, whether it would need door trimming or what.

NT

No; the limits are different in Scotland.

The cmsll claims procedure us limited to £750. Up to £1500 can be raised as summary cause in the Sheriff Court; over £1500 is ordinary cause and you must use a solicitor/advocate to represent you in the Sheriff Court, or Outer House of the Court of Session.

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Unfortunately you (Like myself with builders previously) sound like you fall in that bracket of it's too expensive to forget, but not expensive enough for a solicitor to be able to make the claim & claim costs from the vendor.

I suspect that you're going to have to doit yourself. But if you do, make sure you keep the reciepts & take them to small claims to recover the money. I wouldn't spend any more on solicitors. They're a complete & utter waste of money (In this country anyway). Unless it's over 5000stg in england, it just costs you money & the other size won't pay anyway because they know it's more expensive for you to sue them than to not.

[I'm still bitter about my loft, but at least I know that I can do a better job than the last bodgers. Which is pretty damning considering they're supposed to be a specialist conversion company & I'm an IT Consultant that sits in a chair all day playing with firewalls & load balancers] H

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