I bought my property in January 2005. I am the second occupier of the property. The house was built around 2002/2003 and has a 10-year NHBC Buildmark policy which expires in July 2013.
I have recently discovered that vermin are occupying the wall cavities and loft spaces. There is no doubt about this as I caught one in the main loft. I have been round the house to ascertain possible entry points such as soffits, barge boards, signs of burrowing, etc. Nothing obvious can be found.
I’m concluding, after a bit of research, that entry must be from under the ground (as I can’t find anything above the ground), perhaps from gaps left during the building stage.
My next action, which I have not yet taken, was to ask an expert such as Rentokil for their opinion. If they conclude that vermin are gaining access to the house from a defect in the building, do I have a legitimate complaint against my NHBC policy from which I can claim?
I am pretty sure that the NHBC warranty is not transferable to a second owner and anyway it only covers structural defections in years 2-10 and not snagging issues. If your property is not a detached house you need to check your neighbour’s walls too. You will probably find a hole in the wall just beneath the ground. Once they are in the cavity they can get anywhere.
this is in reference to a dispute I had with my builders for over 2yrs until the NHBC became involved and instructed the builders ,Taykor Wimpey.Scotland, to rectify the cause of water ingress into my living room through the ceiling of the patio door recess. In October 2009 your Mr.MacBeth compiled a Resolution Report, ref.09/43096 with water ingress being part of the report, and with that Wimpey said they would carry out remedial work to sort the problem out. That work was carried out in March 2010 but, on Thursday 3rd of February gale force winds & rain battered the central belt and water again poured through the ceiling of the livingroom.
The reason I am contacting you at this stage is because I tried to contact Wimpey by phone at least 6 times throughout Friday 4th only to be told by recorded message that the operatives were busy and to phone back later, which I did at various times,just to be told by recorded message at the end of the day to leave my name and reason for calling on an answer machine.As I said at the start,it took 2yrs and NHBC intervention to finally get Wimpey to try and remedy the problem,without success and I hope with NHBC help I can get Wimpey to come out and stop the water ingress into my house ASAP,as this is the 2nd night we have had to put buckets down to catch the drips.
I will of course attempt to contact Wimpey on Monday, but would appreciate NHBCs participation to get this resolved sooner rather than later.
As this is my works e-mail address,you can contact me on my home phone-01875 613391 or my mobile-07514457733.
Thankimg you
Adam Smiley
My houses is 7 years old, we have found out drain is backfalling and retaining water. The NHBC wouldnt pay up, because they feel it wouldnt cost ,as much as the quote i had sent in. My problem is why should i have to pay anything out, its clearly, a builders error. You dont buy a new house to be left to pay to put drains in right.