Upstairs landing of external stairs gave way and dh fell 10 feet. Report?

[LimitIsUp]

Our garage was built 5 years ago. Its a triple garage with accommodation over it which dh uses as an office. There is a set of external wooden stairs and a small landing at the top. That landing gave way yesterday and dh feel 10 feet to the ground. He was fast tracked through A&E (because that sort of fall is potentially serious) but fortunately only has damage to the soft tissue of one ankle (Doctors said he was super lucky). Dh could have broken his back / had internal bleeding etc. Mercifully this was not the case

I am completely unimpressed that this happed. There was no sign of rotting to the wood but on inspection it looks like the landing was held in place with a few screws and nails. I would like to report this, not for compensation as none needed, but so that the carpenter concerned gets some serious heat. Only problem is that we are friendly with the guy who built the garage and we don't want him to get flack. He subcontracted the carpenter to do the wooden stairs. If we report it will the builder get grief too, or just the carpenter? Also who to report it too?

Thanks @Setting , my sentiments entirely.

I've added two images which show where the landing fell through. Its obvious what the issue is - on one photo you will see that the edge of the remaining strip of landing lies on and is supported and secured by nails to a bit of wood that juts out lying to the left of the photo, but on the other photo, note that on the right hand side, this lateral slat of landing cannot not be secured in the same way because the 'lip' of the door prevents this. Sorry for the absence of technical terms

Sorry, to clarify - we had the garage built after we moved in

Holy shit. There's actually nothing supporting one end of the planks that form the landing area, is there?

I hope you manage to find out how to report it as that is horrifyingly unsafe construction, I'm not a builder or even good at DIY but even I can see that's not how it should be done!

@PrincessofWellies

"Look it up or leave legal advice to lawyers"

I am a lawyer, have been practising civil litigation for 23 years.

@SerfnTerf I know right! I cannot leave this unaddressed as one of those things. The issue is how to get the carpenter in the shit but not the builder (who trusted the professionalism of the carpenter)

It depends on the contract, but I don't think you can. Your contract was with the builder. Any case you have is against him.

He, in his turn, has to bring a case against the carpenter.

Unless you had a contract direct with the carpenter, you have to go after the builder.

I don't think you can for the reasons given above.

Did you not have to submit drawings for planning permission?

Whoever signed the project off didn’t look very hard!

Exactly, at the very least I can raise this with Building control who signed off without noticing this, and they will have to talk to carpenter which should make him sweat a bit

Tbh that’s the route I would go down.

@PlatBilledDuckypuss

It depends on the contract, but I don't think you can. Your contract was with the builder. Any case you have is against him.

He, in his turn, has to bring a case against the carpenter.

This is precisely why the law of tort developed. At the risk of sounding too much like my rather rude Learned Friend @PrincessofWellies I am guessing you're not a lawyer as Tort is basically Day 1 of law school. Google Donoghue v Stevenson, the classic "snail in the bottle" case. Ms Donoghue didn't buy the lemonade, her friend bought it for her, so she had no contract with the cafe. The case established that the cafe nonetheless had a duty of care to her to not poison her with snails.

I should caveat that if we were in a situation here where a claim was worthwhile I'd recommend going against both builder in contract and builder and joiner in tort, but it's definitely not correct to say no claim against the joiner.

However, OP doesn't want a small award of civil damages for a minor injury and maybe a bit of property damage, she is seeking regulatory intervention and/or sanction. A civil claim will not achieve that, other than perhaps putting joiner in position where his insurance premiums go up as a result of the claim.

To be honest, the builder should have checked that too. Or hired a carpenter that wouldnt build so stupidly and shoddily. The buck stops with the builder who is overseeing a project.

Have you got the original plans and spec it was built to

tbf without knowing what you are looking at you could be drawing the wrong conclusions
the actual structural support could come from something like 1 main beam or a couple of post
the nails you are looking are more than likely aren’t load bearing or relevant to the structural integrity of it

it could be one I’d the support post has failed and that’s why it’s collapsed

if the carpenter built it to the plans/spec you supplied and it was signed off I presume you’d have to prove you’ve maintained it and inspected it
don’t know if I was going to give it a lick of paint it in a few weeks after 5 years would be enough

/\ This , who designed the stairs and did the carpenter then follow that design?

I’m not an expert in any way, but can see what you’re talking about with the lack of support! Hopefully all these suggestions about who to contact help.

I work in insurance.
We would be referring this, and any other building defect, that has happened in the last 6 years to our recovery team.
This do what we advise all our customers.
Buildings and repairs should last more then 6 years so unless there was obvious fault (impact, negligence) on your end you can likely assume that it either wasn't fitted properly or materials were not adequate so if you claimed those costs would be attempted to be recovered.

Was there a wooden or steel beam that came down with the planks, or was there literally nothing to support the planks on the other side? Surely you would have always felt the platform deflecting if you walked close to the unsupported edge if it has always been unsupported? Something not properly secured during the construction that worked lose over time?

That's interesting @midnightblue12.

My understanding was that the average buildings insurance policy covers damage caused to the property by some sort of structural failure, but not the cost of repairing the failure itself if it was the result of "wear and tear".

So to give a true example, my sister's house was recently damaged when a garden wall collapsed on to part of it. She owns the wall. It was very old (hundreds of years) and it's not at all clear why it collapsed. Insurers are fine to pay to rebuild the house, rehouse them temporarily and clear the rubble from the garden, but the cost of rebuilding the wall falls to her alone. They're not interested in investigating the cause further.

I think what you are saying is that if the wall had been less than 6 years old the starting assumption would have been that it was not wear and tear, so it would be covered, insurers would pay out to rebuild it and then take a view as to whether to make a subrogated recovery?

@ChocChipHandbag yeah you're right. Home insurance isn't designed for wear and tear, more damage caused by one off events. I suppose I was just trying to explain that you can refer things back to companies within a period of time as repairs and materials should be lasting longer then 5 years, and if not, soemthing must have been wrong with it in the first place.
We typically get involved in this when there's been a leak on new pipe work which has caused damage to the home.
Sorry if my previous explanation was a bit misleading! I would definitely be getting some legal advice.
If you haven't already OP might be worth checking your insurance policies to see if you have an legal advice cover!

I'm surprised that lasted 5 years. It's a massive oversight. Hadn't it started sagging before it gave way?

No, it wasn't misleading at all. Thank you for the quick reply.

I guess I was just wondering whether the "failure before 6 years" assumption meant that repair of (in your example) the pipe itself is more likely to be covered. In OP's situation it's the difference between insurers paying to rebuild the stairs or not.

My sister is taking advice on her wall situation, agree that every case is different and nobody can make definitive statements in an online forum.

Sorry, 5 years, not 6.

OP, did you not have to apply for planning permission and submit plans? It's a basic question.

Yes, it was architect designed and had planning permission. Fairly sure planners don't drill down to the detail of how the landing on the stairs is secured