Follow Scott and Kath Turner as through the process of buying a new David Wilson Homes house. Hopefully, like most of the other bloggers they will get a house finished to a better standard than most. Or maybe not…

David Wilson Homes

My Husband and I moved in to a David Wilson Home in Little Dunmow, Essex at the end of june 2005, and have since had snagging problems unresolved.

We have rain water gushing down between our wall and next door’s (show home). This has been reported time and time again, in fact since last September. We call David Wilson homes on a weekly basis, only to be told that they will call us back in the afternoon – They never do!

We have spoken to many people within David Wilson homes who all promise to call us. They are just wasting our prescious time.

We have had a constant dripping tap in our bathroom from the outset, which a so called plumber did try to mend, but it is worse, and have concerns with the amount of water we lose a day, is costing us dearly with our water meter.

I am sick and tired of having to call David Wilsons and very angry that no one cares. We have other little snags but the major one is the one with the cavity wall with the rain water.

Are we in years to come going to have dampness and have to fork out for the damage because of David Wilsons NEGLECT of duty?

We are bitterly disappointed and will never buy New again.

If only David Wilson Homes were as eager as they were when they tried getting us to sign on the dotted line and handing over our cash for Trash!

Lisa Hounsome

Discuss Lisa’s story in the David Wilson Homes forum

We purchased a 2 bed flat from DWH in May 2003.

We only went to look at the Development with no intention to buy and came away determined to purchase one of the flats. The deposit was down within a week. The flat was near complete and had only the kitchen, sanitary ware, skirting etc to fit. We were delighted with the location, look and size of the flat. A pity we did not look close enough at the standard of internal work.

Prior to moving in DWH solicitors in Glasgow informed our solicitor they could not exchange on the previously agreed date as it fell on a local (Glasgow) holiday. They finally agreed to have someone in to receive the funds transfer. Did they really expect us to re-arrange removal vans, mortgage funds, cancellation of utilities, put off the purchasers for the two properties we had sold etc. This was a warning of things to come.

On the day we moved in:

Sales staff and cabin had moved of site never to return. At this time only 4 or 5 of the 12 flats were occupied.

Site Manager was off abroad that afternoon and could not hang around.

Boiler was broken. No hot water or heating. “Sorry, you will have to phone a plumber”

Telephone sockets did not work and nothing to do with BT.

No evidence the flat had been cleaned prior to entry. The amount of debris painted onto the walls etc suggested the floor had been swept at some time. I.e. onto the skirting etc then painted over.

Flat stank of chips-probably the painter’s lunch.

Our parking space sold with the flat was not completed for months.

No fireplace was installed. In 2004 we got a refund of £500. DWH had been unable to send us a brochure to pick one. We used this money to re-tile our bathroom. Nothing wrong with the tiles we just prefer them evenly spaced out and grout in between. On some rows the pattern on the tile was repeated 3, 4 and even 5 times in a row. The tiler had not bothered to mix them up. The sealant which finished either side of the taps did not impress us either.

We expected to find the usual snagging but not this amount or having to wait years to get things done.

Christmas
It was near enough Christmas before our letters regards snagging were answered by DWH Glasgow office. Apparently they had all been placed in our file rather than read.

General.

We can hear our ground floor neighbour peeing in their en-suite bathroom. We are on the 2nd floor.

DWH had overvalued the re-build cost of the block. In the 1st year, all 12 flats paid £500+ each for buildings insurance.

The inside stairwell lighting is permanently on and has never worked properly. We often come home to find the stair in darkness and also to find the electrics in our flat has tripped. We have just found out that 3 of the external street lights are wired into the stair supply. Our last factor bill for communal electricity was £70 each. The residents paid for an inspection and found the majority of fittings were upside down, not enough breakers etc, to deal with the load. David Wilson Homes are in the process of fixing the faults albeit only after contacting their Head Office. The debris from the repair, bits of wire, screws etc have been left lying around the stairwell as off 16 April.

Our previous Barratt property had switches on each floor to turn on/off the stair lighting.

One of DWH Directors in front of the Maintenance Manager, myself and girlfriend said we were lucky not to have a family from Pakistan living beneath us (polite version) while inspecting the non-existent insulation around our soil pipes. Something about the inspection hatches being used to dispose of nappies.

One neighbour has been flooded three times due to nails in pipes and boiler problems.

We have still to receive our completion certificate due to the stair lighting and problems with sound insulation

Standard of internal finish

We have recently written to NHBC/DWH Head Office to have remaining items completed. There are too many faults to list however here’s what to look out for unless DWH contractors have improved.

Insulation. The council surveyor told us the block had been built to the council’s minimum standard so not a lot he could do other than insist DWH inspect the soil pipes. Something they had earlier refused to do.

Standard of Painting- CRAP.

Internal division walls/boxed in pipework-warped. Made form bent bits of wood. The kind you see in DIY shops which have not been sold.
Doors don’t fit frames. For a few ££ more they come fixed to a frame from the manufacturer. DWH would rather make their own-pity.
Paint all over ironmongery.

Installation of WC/general plumbing-CRAP.

Toilets secured to wall only by pipework. There were screws fitted in one cistern but do not grip the wall. Radiators tails vary in length from room to room and even radiator to radiator.
Plasterboard/filling/taping-splits, cracks and pops over and above what you would expect. Never bothered to rub down excess plaster prior to painting.

Electrical fittings-holes cut to size of faceplate instead of box. Surround then filled with either plaster/caulk or as we found silicone bath sealant.

Windows-the factory spray finish was chipped, scratched etc. Rusted fittings and damaged external frames. They had obviously been lying around the site in the rain prior to fitting.

Boiler-looks second-hand and was always on ‘lockout’ i.e. broken prior to moving in.

Kitchen and fittings-GREAT.

This is one room we don’t have a problem with. No doubt fitted by the kitchen supplier and not DWH.

For the price we paid (over £200K) we should have had decent doors and ironmongery. I bought some replacement door hinges for 80p a pair, an exact match to the ones fitted. The doors are cheap and lightweight. The cheapest available from Rembrand Timber. We should know we had four replaced.

DWH Contractors

They would often turn up late or not arrive at all and unprepared to do the work specified in their job sheets. I had to direct the painter who turned up to spray the windows to the nearest B&Q. He had no sandpaper or masking tape. He had been told that morning he was to do ‘some spraying’.

He sprayed around the handles as DWH joiner had not removed them. Joiner arrives then nicks the surrounding woodwork taking off the handles. He then later replaces them and leaves his fingerprints on the still wet frame. Day 2 lets all start again and include all the bits missed the previous day. Day 3, Day 4…

DWH Maintenance Joiner.

Happy to help and eager to please but didn’t have the tools or the skill to do much good-sorry.

DWH Maintenance Manager & Customer Liaison Manager

I suspect they were busy and trying to find their feet in a new job. The poor admin did not help. In 2003, however there were and still are few sites built by DWH. If the quality has not improved they are sailing into a storm.

Both Managers and joiner we dealt with have since left DWH.

I don’t know if they have a new Maintenance Manager but I hope the new joiner knows how to sharpen a chisel. The new Customer Liaison Manager whom I have met, gives the impression he can’t be bothered listening to anything you have to say.

DWS sales staff

They should have remained on site, otherwise no complaints.

DWH Glasgow Office

Probably a lot of hard working people undermined by some poor admin and follow up.

Our wish list

DWH to complete our remaining snagging to an acceptable standard and learn from their mistakes. Only then our property might start to resemble the description in one of their glossy sales brochures.

They should thoroughly inspect their properties and rectify faults.

Inspect remedial work and not leave it to the homeowner to do.

Monitor the trades daily during the build and rectify poor work before they move onto the next room/property.

ALDI are selling laser levels for £9.99-buy some.

We could not recommend buying a DWH home. Check with the Council’s surveyor dealing with your development. If it’s built to minimum standard, walk away. You don’t want to hear your guests using the WC as you and everyone else are having a meal. It’s disturbing.

ST, A fed up owner in Scotland. 14 April 2006.

If I get a result from the builder or NHBC I will update this message.

Question: DWH, why do I have 2 cables leading to the boiler coming out from the wall beneath the fused connection unit in my utility room. Surely the cables should be behind the wall or even coming out through the faceplate via a cable entry point.

Why? DWH Why?

The day we intended posting the above (14/04/06) we received a reply to our letter from DWH head office. Our letter has been copied to the Glasgow office and the Customer Liaison/Quality Assurance Director form head office will be discussing the content in person with the Glasgow Managing Director on 20 April.

Perhaps in the future some of these Directors/Managers will have a good look at one of their properties prior to handing over the keys to the purchaser. If you all fancy a day out you can come see the mess in our house.

3 May 2006
No word from DWH so far.

When the Gallimores from Rhoose Point bought their £200,000 house, they discovered a unique water feature that they could do without

Most new houses, when bought, have a few snags which need correcting but weeks after buying a new house in Rhoose Point in the Vale of Glamorgan, Paul and Karen Gallimore faced a rather more pressing problem.

Karen explained: “We woke up in the morning and we were just having some breakfast and Paul said ‘I’m going to have to relay the patio, it’s turning into a swimming pool’ – and we were just looking and looking and of course saw the water building up round the house and investigated and looked over the fence – and saw Niagara Falls.”

Paul and Karen bought their new house from David Wilson Homes in November 2002. They’d both sold their houses to move in together – a new home and a new start.

“When we decided to buy the property we had a standard valuation survey carried out and there was actually no indication that there anything abnormal about what we were buying.”

Having spent £209,000 on their new home Paul and Karen are worried their house is losing its value. The Gallimores say estate agents haven’t been positive about being able to sell it. When selling, past and present flooding problems are usually disclosed to your buyer’s solicitors.

The estate has been built on land between a railway embankment and the sea. If there’s a large volume of water in the fields beyond the railway line, it sometimes drains through the embankment and into the Gallimore’s garden.

Our resident building expert Simon Cousins examined the source of the problem on the other side of the railway embankment.

“The fields here clearly run down towards the railway embankment. The farmer has confirmed that water has historically run down and pooled this side of the railway embankment. Gradually that water will then percolate through the railway embankment to whatever is the other side of that embankment.”

And it seems at times it’s been ending up in the Gallimore’s back garden.

David Wilson Homes had the drainage put in by another company. The system they installed included a drain called a catchpit, in the Gallimores garden.

It’s connected to pipes which should be carrying the floodwater that soaks through the embankment. There was only one way to find out why the pipes were not doing their job – so Rupert went underground to see if he could shed some light on the matter.

So whats going on? The answer lies in two engineers’ reports – one commissioned by David Wilson Homes and the other by the Gallimores. They make pretty interesting reading.

The David Wilson Homes report advises “an alternative land drainage regime be employed to prevent any further problems at plot 14″. It goes on to say, “It is advised that a study of potential flooding be carried out on plots 6-26 of David Wilson Homes development” – both reports are in agreement on these issues.

Karen said: “We were totally shocked with the findings because David Wilson Homes’ own surveyor said that twenty other plots on our estate are potentially liable to flood.”

Despite these recommendations given in David Wilson Homes’ own report – no action has been taken and nearly a year after the first floods the waters returned.

When the floods returned in December Paul dug a trench down the back of his garden, lifted the manhole cover and channelled the water into his drain, probably preventing more widespread problems.

Simon thinks a lot needs to be done.

“You have to go to the boundaries of these properties and you have to intercept the water and then you have to provide a land drain to take that water away and you’re going to have to do that for this whole row of properties – you just can’t do it for one property by itself. This is a problem that’s not going to get better by itself – it has to be sorted out.”

And good news! X-Ray has been in touch with David Wilson Homes and they told us that they have:

“…taken on the moral obligation of committing to try to resolve the situation for Mr and Mrs Gallimore. David Wilson Homes is prepared to carry out the relevant drainage work at their property, as a gesture of goodwill, in line with expert recommendations. The company regrets the distress and expense that the flooding problems have caused.”

From Watchdog Archive.

Ask Allyson Snape anything about plumbing, central heating, power showers, damp problems or roof repairs and she’ll probably have the answer. Her know-how comes not from evening classes, but a three-year saga that she and her husband John have faced since they bought a “luxury”, four-bedroom David Wilson home in the Peak District, writes Christopher Browne. Read more: David Wilson Home

A family bought a house found hundreds of defects. They could have avoided the heartache, explains Christopher Browne

The McGuire family could hardly contain their excitement when they moved into the five-bedroom house they had just bought on a new estate in Cambridgeshire. “We’d been anticipating the big day for months,” says Hazel McGuire.

However, elation turned to disappointment when the McGuires found many items in their £298,000 house were either faulty, missing or unfinished. “As we’d already had a five-month delay when the top floor was destroyed by fire and had to be rebuilt, we were totally gobsmacked,” says 43-year-old Mrs McGuire, whose husband had just moved jobs from Leeds to London.

Many walls and ceilings had no plaster, the roof was not secured properly, there were holes behind the radiators and next to the electrical sockets, many windows didn’t fit, several walls had no insulation, and most of the kitchen units were damaged or poorly fitted. “It was so dirty that we had to spend three days cleaning it up,” says Mrs McGuire.

When the couple reported all their problems to the developer, the company told them the house was “perfectly adequate”. It did, however, promise to put ceramic tiles on the floors of the two bathrooms and a toilet “as a form of compensation”, says Mrs McGuire, mother of three children aged nine to 20.

But worse was to come. As winter approached, the family discovered the house was getting colder. “Though the central heating was on, the gas fire’s flue wasn’t working properly and so smoke and fumes kept seeping back into the room,” says Simon McGuire. The couple called in a Corgi-registered heating engineer who said that part of the chimney had been blocked with debris.

Over the next few months, the McGuires found fresh defects, had an animated correspondence with the developer and spent £7,000 on legal fees and structural surveys. Then, when one surveyor found more than 300 defects, the couple asked the developer to buy the house back. They are now negotiating a suitable price.

A device called snagging could have saved them all this trouble. This is the system by which a buyer inspects a new-build or conversion property for defects in workmanship or finishing. It’s also the property industry’s answer to try-before- you-buy. If you snag your property before you complete, you can hold back a sum of money that is known as a “retention” until the repair work has been done.

Prudent buyers and investors should always use professionals when they snag – to make sure they don’t miss anything. You can either approach a quantity or building surveyor you know and get it done for a fee of £100-£250 or contact a specialist snagging company. The key national one is New Build Inspections (0845 226 6486) which will send out a former building inspector or site manager to help you snag for £150-£300 (plus VAT).

Though every new-build or conversion is signed off with an NHBC (National House-Builders Council) certificate, some developers try to wriggle out of those nasty little snags by saying they are part of the structure or fabric of a building – both are covered by the two-year NHBC guarantee – and not due to their own poor workmanship. But if you snag before you complete, you will be able to force the developer to carry out the work thanks to that crucial retention.

Archive from Independent

Watchdog has received over a hundred complaints about David Wilson Homes.

The Bannings were approaching retirement and had saved for years to buy their home. Dianne Banning told Watchdog, “We now face the prospect of our nest-egg being swallowed up with all the problems. The rendering on the front of the house has cracked and it’s going to be a destructive and expensive process to investigate what has happened. The roof also chatters away in the wind – we’ve had electrical problems – the list goes on and on.”

The McGuires bought their house last year. Within a few weeks of moving in, they noticed all sorts of problems with their new home. They found holes behind the radiators, gaps around the tiles and cracks in the bathroom.

Hazel McGuire told Watchdog, “In total, there were 339 snagging faults. The house was freezing and we couldn’t get it warm because walls and ceilings had not been properly insulated.” They also had problems with the roof.

The McGuires commissioned an independent survey on their home. Its author, chartered building surveyor John Norman, was scathing. He said, “The House has not been built in accordance with building regulations and on many points contravenes the 1984 Building Act. I have to say that in all my years in the business this is the worst new-build house I have ever seen.”

David Wilson Homes have agreed to meet the families in the film to discuss the best way to proceed with the repairs. It claims that in recent years it has consistently achieved a satisfaction rating from customers significantly above government targets.

From archive