Hopping mad! Garden issues.

[Thingiebob]

We have recently bought a new build house. We are first time buyers so quite 'green'.

The house is lovely. We have so far been really pleased with the build quality, size, fixtures and fittings, however, the garden out the back is terrible.

Since we have been here (two months) it has been a constant smelly swamp and the lovely fresh turf laid down when we purchased has died off. The grass is coming out in handfuls! It is a small fenced off square with a path running down the middle. I spoke to the site manager as they are still building onsite who assured me that the grass will grow back and it will better in the spring.

Today a man came to plant a tree in the garden - part of the site plans, nothing to do with me. He dug up the garden and was horrified at how little top soil had been put down and showed me the thick yellow clay underneath. He has informed me that

• I cannot plant anything in this garden
• It will ALWAYS be wet, boggy and smelly as there is nowhere for the water to drain off.
• any kind of change will cost a lot of money
• basically this garden is unusable

I am so fucking pissed off about this. I was quite seriously hopping with anger after the gardener had left. I bought this house understanding that it came with a reasonable sized back garden for my daughter to play out in. The saleswoman waxed lyrical about what a blank canvas it was and showed me what other people had done with their gardens on the estate. I was really looking forward to learning how to plant and care for a bit of green space. At no point were we ever informed that there may be a problem.

If any other part of the house was not working I would expect the onsite builders to come and sort it out, so I suppose what I am asking is,

Would it be unreasonable for me to complain and expect the developers to do something? Or am I just monumentally stupid and should have found all of this out before we purchased?

Thanks!

They should have put in proper drainage - I remember back in the mists of time a friends parents having the same issue and the developers put drainage in. Will it damage your foundations?

I'm not sure if you would have been able to find out much about the subsoil before you purchased. To be honest it would never have crossed my mind.

If they are still building on site then I think you are in a strong position to ask for them to sort it out for you. You need land drains putting in and you need at least 300mm of topsoil. I'd be concerned about lack of drainage in clay as it can cause problems with foundations in the long term.

Does the specification for the house mention minimum topsoil quantities. Does the planning permission say anything?

It's a new build, so perhaps it's worth a look at your NHBC Certificate, also get in touch with the solicitor who handled your sale and the person who did the survey. If the solicitor worked for the building company who sold you the house then perhaps get in touch with another one to act for you in this.

Is this likely to impact on the value of the house (sounds like it will to me).

As well as having a smelly, unusable garden (and no tree as per the plans you bought off) it sounds like a flooding risk to me.

I don't want to scare you but it was only a couple of years ago that people were being flooded out of their homes.

If the garden having no drainage is going to put yours at risk then you will find it almost impossible to sell the house or get any insurance on it. In fact your insurance might already be invalid (I don't know that for sure, but it's a concern you will have to look into.)

I will look through all the p/w and documents we we were provided with to see if it says anything about topsoil.

We are skint so can't afford to do anything about this at the moment but apparently there is about 6 inches of soil which I imagine falls into min requirements.

sounds like its part of a big development so you should be able to get this sorted. We have just moved into a similar situation (in that its newbuild from a big co, the garden is ok) but there are some issues that we are working our way through via the customer care team. If the garden is not usable they must deal with it. Can you get the gardener to put something in writing so it is officially a problem and not just a matter of opinion? Then approach the company and see what they say / do in the first instance.

OP perhaps this website will be able to help you.

I know you say you can't afford to do anything about it, but it sounds like one of those catch-22 situations where you can't afford to wait and not do anything either.

We put land drains in our last garden. Well DH did - he likes digging. It didn't cost a great deal. If you can tap into the surface water drains then it works well. Otherwise you need to create a sump. You probably don't want a pond but it can be a solution.

Really though I'd be trying to get the builders to sort this out. It could be done in a day. Kick up a fuss in the sales office at a weekend

Thank you.
You have all been very helpful and I have calmed down a bit now!

I have been told any complaints should go directly to the regional office.

I would complain direct to the Head Office of the developers who built your house. The people in the show home are likely to just say yeah whatever. We bought a new build 6 years ago and had a power cut a couple of weeks after moving in on the day we were going away for a week. We asked the salespeople at the show home for help and it was like they were completely different people to the ones who sold us the house, so unhelpful.

We also got shafted big time garden wise, I'm afraid it's quite common with developers. Ours was left with a huge relatively dangerous slope and the soil never turned into grass as it was just full of crap and bricks, all the stuff they couldn't be bothered to move after finishing the house.

We never took it further and I regret it hugely. In fact we have just spent almost £10k fixing it and making it usable. The landscaper who did it put in almost 40 tonne of new soil.

Developers (begin with a W and have a v similar name to a restaurant food chain) also planted turf for us on the day they knew we were going on our 2 week summer holiday and of course it died because we weren't there to water it.

New build gardens are usually shite. They chuck all the building crap out the back, smooth a bit of soil over the top and then lay turf. That said, it takes years to get decent soil in a new garden. Every time I had to plant something, I dug a bigger hole and backfilled with compost. Eventually (think, a decade) I have reasonable borders. We're moving in to another new build in the next few months. This whole area is heavy blue clay

I'm afraid that new build gardens are very often bad quality. One TV gardener has a horror story about how he was told to nail strips of turf onto a slope to make it look green and healthy.

If you don't get any joy with the developers, you could look at growing plants in raised beds filled with good quality top soil that the water will drain through easily.

Here are some tips from the RHS: apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/Profile.aspx?pid=204

If it's really a small garden, then you might be able to improve the soil yourself with a heck of a lot of digging, sharp sand and organic matter.

I had a dodgy new build garden with a similar clay soil issue...

Wasnt a costly exercise really as I have done it in stages... I did the hard landscaping first - planned it myself, shopped around for best deal and then had it delivered then a mate starting his own business did the job in exchange for positive word of mouth and pics to go on his website.
it was then we realised we had a soil issue... grass was a problem... lots of compost dug in to break down the clay but over the years we (well my dad!!) have had to re-seed areas - the grass has to be really good quality and shop around in the local area (NOT B&Q etc) as the grass will be grown on similar soil and local sellers will know what type is best. But I have minimal grass to be honest.

Plants and trees... have chosen ones for soil type - roses and shrubs have done REALLY well but some of the more delicate flowers havent. I have the most beautiful weeping miniture birch tree - the garden slopes towards one end and we've planted it quite close to the step down to the patio so the water will run that end.

Dont have a major issue now with standing water but I did before it was turfed and before the compost went in. In very heavy rain the patio can be difficult to drain even though it's small and has plenty of potential drainage so my advice is with patio areas to put in MUCH more drainage than usually needed and slope it off to a run off point... on hindsight we should have ran it off in opposite direction to it actually goes.

Been in 6 years but the main work was done in first 2years. I tried and failed with the builders, especially over the soil as it's natuarally occuring. Very annoying but now very proud of garden - if I had waited for builders I suspect it would still be a mess. neighbour did complain formally to builder but they just kept putting turf down and eventually said it was her that did not maintain it... she has patio'd the lot.