The Daily Mail has an article today about widespread problems with poor sound insulation in new build homes. What do you expect when there is no standards and homes simply have to adhere to a set of theoretical standards managed by a company called Robust Details Ltd (I think that must be an ironic name). Anyway, they are quoted in the article as saying that often when testing takes palce as a result of a complaint to the NHBC the homes meet standard the home owners are still not happy. Quite offensive really – they are basically saying that there poor souls are just whingeing.

Anyway, read it for yourself:

Home insulation has become big business, thanks to grants inspired by the Government’s carbon emission reduction target. But never mind heat insulation, Trevor and Elaine New want to know what has happened to the sound insulation in their flat in Pendlebury, Greater Manchester.

Their joy in picking up a flat at Bryant Homes’ development Joule Point for £110,000 at the bottom of the housing slump in October 2008 has been somewhat tempered by the regular pounding of footsteps upstairs.

‘I have no complaint against the neighbours, who are just going about their normal business, but I don’t think we should be able to hear them in our flat,’ says Trevor, 58, who works in the construction industry himself as a health-and-safety adviser.

With the property market in the doldrums, millions of us are wondering if our home is the secure investment it once was. But for David Robinson, there was a much more unusual reason to be worried.

When he first moved in to his new house, David had no idea that beneath his drive – and only a few meters from his front door – lay an old, disused mining shaft (which isn’t surprising really because it’s completely invisible to the naked eye). The company that built the house, however, knew all about it – they just didn’t tell David.

David paid 100,000 pounds to Taylor Wimpey for his brand new home in County Durham in 2002. The area has a strong mining heritage, yet the mines search David carried out before buying the property revealed no mineshafts directly affecting his future home. He says that it was only during a casual conversation with the site manager – after he’d bought the house – that David first learned what lurked under his drive.

Complaints about alleged defects in new homes are increasing, despite a slump in the number of properties sold in the recession. Complaints to the National House Building Council (NHBC), which offers warranties on 80% of new homes, topped 64,000 in 2008/09. This is up only slightly from 63,000 in 2007/08 but comes in a year when there was a 40% drop in the number of new homes sold because of the credit crunch.

The Watchdog team investigated the National House-Building Council (NHBC) yet again on 21 April 2008. It seems that the NHBC or some builder is on televsion every six months or so without fail. Hopefully, the Office of Fair Trading will make recommendations in the summer that will improve consumer rights. I bet Imtiaz Farookhi the NHBC’s CEO is quietly hoping for this so he can stop getting hammered on national TV.

From the BBC Report:

Eighty five per cent of newly built houses are covered by the NHBC’s Buildmark Policy, a warranty that guarantees the NHBC will fix any major defects occurring to a property within the first ten years after purchase.

In 1999, Helen Staub moved into her new home on the outskirts of Manchester. Two years later, cracks started to appear in the house and Helen contacted her insurers who identified major problems with her foundations. She went to the NHBC, hoping that it could fix the problem, but it rejected her claim, stating that it wasn’t serious enough.

We made a few visits to the site as the development (1st phase) went up and were shown plans outlining street furniture, types of soft landscaping etc and all was well. We ended our rental agreement as we didn’t need another six month lease and moved everything we owned into garages amongst friends and family. We then moved into my parent’s home for the last three months in anticipation of completion. A few weeks before exchange our solicitor called to say there was a big problem. Basically Wimpey had built the flats in the wrong place meaning that around 10% of the property was on unowned land. As such Wimpey could not offer full legal title on any of the homes.

Wimpey’s renowned legal department however had different ideas. We received a letter from Wimpey which quite honestly looked as though a child had written it. The number of grammatical errors and spelling mistakes in such an important letter was crazy and this from their legal manager! In essence they stated that there is no problem at all with the property as Wimpey have bought an indemnity policy to protect the owners against some difficulties. Some…not all…and Wimpey felt that was more than adequate.

Quite rightly we were advised that this was highly irregular. Wimpey indemnity policy or not many lenders would be unhappy with this situation as would future buyers with any sense. The policy would not cover us for this type of problem, amongst many others, potentially leaving us and the other affected buyers in an impossible position. Advice from Wimpey legal department?

‘If you make a statutory declaration that there is a title problem to future buyers this will only improve the situation.’ So, if we tell people there is a major issue with the land suddenly everything will be fine? A clearly unbiased view from Wimpey then! After much arguing and disbelief at the Wimpey attitude we had to walk away from the sale. In the meantime property prices had risen meaning it was harder to find something suitable and we’d wasted thousands on fees, surveys, checks etc.

Wimpey felt that they had nothing to do with this as quote ‘it was your choice to walk away from the sale.’ Not really a choice as such is it? The solicitor felt so bad for us that he actually discounted his price and it was nothing to do with him! In over 20 years of conveyancing he’d been offered various forms of title but not once had he been offered no title at all.

On top of these immense difficulties we also lost some of our property stored in garages which got too cold and damp as we’d never intended it to be stored in the colder months. Wimpey didn’t care at all, as far as they were concerned a dodgy indemnity policy was sufficient and we should have been grateful to them. That’s our story in a nutshell.

There is a happy ending however. Disgusted family and friends gathered together to help restore our wasted funds and we bought a great factory conversion apartment which is awesome compared to the damaged shell of a home Wimpey tried to force us into. Not once have they offered any form of apology or recognition of the money they cost us despite admitting in early letters that there had indeed been ‘a slight problem’ with the land. Please tell your friends, family and enemies about my site. No-one deserves to go through the hassle this company will happily put you through. Simply avoid them!

www.wimpeythefacts.co.uk (Archive)

Extract:

Hi, a sincere thanks for visiting the site and taking the time to look. This site could potentially save you thousands of pounds and a huge amount of heartache and worry. Isn’t the Internet great? Not that long ago consumers would get a terrible deal and have to keep it almost to themselves. Not any more! With the recent surges in consumers fed up with being abused by ‘caring companies’ this site has been launched to help report what really happens to buyers. This is a real David and Goliath story!

George Wimpey are the sole benefactors of this website…aren’t they lucky? After dealing with them and experiencing what can only be described as a shameful display of incompetance, mismanagement and to be fair…complete contempt for the customer I decided it was time to let you guys know all about it. The following is a true and fair account of the story and as George Wimpey still continue to maintain excellence in all of their dealings they won’t mind me praising them publicly. It’s only fair isn’t it?! Here you go…you’re the people with the money that keep these companies afloat. It’s your hard earned cash that is given to those at the top when they’re awarded huge bonuses.

It’s us they treat badly because there’s always another customer round the corner. Lets make them think shall we! Don’t be conned by the slick campaigns and ‘Customer Charters’. We all deserve more and one day if we stick together we’ll get it. Time to make your own mind up anyway…after all, it’s your money they want now as they’ve already wasted mine. Those executive saloons don’t come cheap you know…