Persimmon Homes Ordered to Pay £420,000 Over Defective New-Build Foundations in Earley, Reading

One of Britain's largest housebuilders has been ordered by a High Court judge to pay more than £420,000 to a homeowner whose four-bedroom detached new-build began to crack and shift after it was built on inadequate foundations.

Persimmon, through its regional arm Persimmon Homes Thames Valley, was found liable after the property on the Sibley Park development in Earley, near Reading, started to suffer structural movement soon after the owner moved in. The buyer, Ioannis Mallas, had paid £649,495 for the home in 2015, part of which was funded by part-exchanging his previous house in the Reading area.

It later emerged that the foundations had been laid too shallow for the clay soil beneath the property. The development sits on land that was previously occupied by a University of Reading halls of residence, and the judge found that the home should have been built with pile foundations extending below the level of the roots of trees that had once stood on the site. Without them, the ground beneath the house was subject to severe heave, causing major cracks and gaps to open up across the building.

In court, Persimmon accepted that the property lacked the appropriate foundations and admitted that it had breached both its contract with Mr Mallas and the Defective Premises Act 1972.

Given the scale of the problems, Mr Mallas had argued that the only proper remedy was to demolish the house entirely and rebuild it. Deputy High Court Judge Alan Bates rejected that, describing full demolition as "extreme and disproportionate". Instead, he approved Persimmon's proposed remediation package, under which the existing building will be retained but supported by a new superstructure, with the ground floor replaced and additional support provided for the external garage and porch. Once repaired, the property will be underpinned so that it is safely supported despite its original faulty foundations.

The judge was careful to note that, serious as the defects were, he would not have found the house unfit for human habitation on the basis of the foundations alone. The movement had caused some cracking, he said, but it was not severe enough to put the safety of the occupants at risk or to make living there unduly uncomfortable.

Mr Mallas was awarded a total of £423,243. The largest portion, £385,543, covers the cost of the structural works and repairs. A further £27,700 was granted to pay for alternative accommodation for the family while the underpinning work is carried out, and £10,000 was awarded in aggravated damages to reflect the stress and anxiety caused by the defect and the lengthy ordeal of pursuing the claim.

The judge expressed clear sympathy for the homeowner, saying he had "considerable sympathy" for Mr Mallas. He acknowledged that the discovery of the ground heave problems had caused a great deal of worry, and that the owner had at times struggled to obtain relevant reports and documentation from the developer. Mr Mallas, he observed, simply wanted what he had paid for, a home free from latent defects that could in future be sold without having to explain a complicated structural history to prospective buyers.

The case was heard in May 2025, with the judgement released the following October. Separately, it emerged that Persimmon had reached an out-of-court settlement with its co-defendant and subcontractor, Simpson Associates Consulting Engineers, which had worked with the developer on the project.

This is not the first time Persimmon's build quality has come under scrutiny. In 2019, an investigation by Channel 4's Dispatches uncovered what it described as a systemic nationwide failure to install crucial fire-stopping cavity barriers in timber-frame homes. The same programme placed the general standard of Persimmon's homes under the spotlight, with an independent surveyor reportedly finding 295 snags in a single property.

In the wake of that report, Persimmon commissioned an independent legal review of its own practices, led by Stephanie Barwise QC, which fed into a new internal building standard intended to enforce proper quality control. The company also became the first major UK housebuilder to introduce a homebuyer retention scheme, allowing buyers to hold back 1.5 per cent of the purchase price until the developer had properly resolved any outstanding snags.

A spokesman for Persimmon Homes Thames Valley said the case centred on the appropriate remediation of the property and that the company was glad the judge had agreed with its proposed approach. The spokesman apologised for the problems caused to the customer by its contractor, with whom it had reached a separate settlement, and added that Persimmon prides itself on its five-star housebuilder rating, the highest available for build quality and customer service. Mr Mallas declined to comment.

For prospective new-build buyers, the case is a stark reminder that even homes from the country's biggest developers can carry serious hidden defects, and that not all of them are obvious on a first walk-through. While foundation problems of this severity are thankfully rare and tend to surface only over time, a thorough snagging inspection at the point of completion remains one of the most effective ways to catch the more common defects early, before they turn into a costly and stressful headache. The fact that a single Persimmon home was once found to contain 295 snags shows just how much can be missed without a careful, systematic inspection.