Redrow Homes
The number one house
builder of the year? - Judge for yourself !!!
In November 1999 my girlfriend (Karen) and
I reserved a £300,000 five bedroom detached house to built by Redrow Homes at the
prestigious Dickens Heath Village in Solihull. We had to put down a 10% deposit within six
weeks and we finally managed to get a 0.5% discount by exchanging contacts within 4 weeks
(this comes to £1,500 which is approximately the interest Redrow would make by holding on
to our £30,000 deposit for the next seven months!).
We were originally told the house would be
ready by May 2000 but in fact it was not 'ready' (if that's the right word!) until late
June. We had inspected the site several times over the preceding months and had brought
Redrow's attention to several faults in the external build quality only to be told that we
shouldn't be finding fault with a house that 'has not been handed over as finished'.
Finally Redrow called us to say that we
could complete during the week of 19 -23 June, only to be told a few days later that they
wanted us now to complete on the Monday 19th June. Our solicitor managed to negotiate a
completion date of Thursday 22nd June but when we inspected the house on the morning of
Friday 16th we were shocked to find a multitude of faults. The Redrow site manager
assured us that these would all be addressed before completion.
Karen phoned the site manager on Wednesday
afternoon and was told that all the internal faults (except for those in the kitchen) had
been repaired (a complete fabrication). When we inspected the house again on Wednesday
evening (the day before completion) not only had most of the faults not been repaired, the
repairs that had been carried out had mostly been botched and a number of new faults (or
'snags' as they are called) had now appeared!
We compiled a list of 81 faults with the house which we duly delivered to
the site early on Thursday morning (the scheduled day of completion). Our solicitor also
received a copy of the faults which she then faxed to the their legal department.
At lunchtime on the Thursday I received a call from John
Sturton (contracts manager) who agreed that all the faults needed addressing and it was
left that he would discuss the situation with someone called Eamon who would arrange for
our solicitor to be sent confirmation that all the faults would be rectified 'by a certain
date'. Our solicitor only received a fax from the Redrow Homes legal department stating
that the faults would be addressed 'within a reasonable time' and by then the balance of
£270,000 had already been transferred otherwise the mortgage advance would have had to
have been transferred back to the building society.
Legally it would appear that the builder can deliver the
house in any state they like and you still have to complete otherwise you run the risk of
being sued. As long as the house is in a fit state to be occupied (i.e. it has a roof,
running water and power) then you will have to hand over your money whether the house has
been finished to an acceptable standard or not.
Our advice is to think very carefuly before commiting to
buying a new house (especially one being built by Redrow). You just don't know what will
eventually be delivered!
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