AIBU - Complain to housing developer that sofa doesn't fit in our house?

[binkyblinky]

Oh wise women of mums net, I need some advice please!

We recently moved into a new home on a brand-new development. It is a three story townhouse and the lounge is on the middle floor.

On moving in day we discovered that our sofa would not fit up the stairs and into the lounge. It is not a large sofa it is a modular sofa, the end units went up fine but the middle section which is a corner unit would not fit. The staircase is so narrow that we had to take apart the tops of our single Ottoman beds to get them up the stairs as well. This is in a large family home.

There are four identical homes to ours on the estate and every other person in those homes has had the same issue, with our neighbours sitting on beanbags for three months. The beanbag neighbours have had three sofa deliveries, all unsuccessful at getting up the stairs.

I feel angry that I had to throw away part of my sofa. The show home has a massive Corner unit in it. We were not advised when we moved in that staircases was so narrow and that we would have trouble fitting furniture up them.

If we were to team up and complain to the housing developer about the poor design, and that four families have been left with no seating, Would we get anywhere? Is there anything that we could do to ask for monetary compensation to buy sofas that you assemble at home? The other three families currently have their sofas in their kitchens while they try to solve this problem. It's ridiculous, being sold a £400,000 house And not being advised of this issue.

I can't see how they should say it is our fault, when they show home clearly written misrepresents the size of the furniture we required. Wisdom needed, thank you

This is inconvenient but you have no case with the developer.

I've experienced a large sofa not fitting in due to door/staircase position- the furniture company sent someone (not that day, they took it away) who cut the sofa in two, got it into the room and re-made it.

They then told me the sofa was now a great deal stronger than originally, and would take a morbidly obese person!!

We live in an Edwardian terrace and have the same problems getting furniture upstairs so it's not a new build problem. I also had to return a sofa shortly after we moved in.

We have a futon in our upstairs sitting room, put it together in the room and got a big mattress and cushions to make it comfortable. Plus a couple of armchairs. It works,

I think this is common with new builds. My friend bought one and had to get a bed specially made to size because everything was fucking tiny in the house. Apparently all of show show homes have max to size furniture in them.

Ha ha Thankyou for some funny and not too many people slating us.
Funny they warned us that the hob was Induction and we'd need new pans, but nothing that we can only bring dolls furniture.
We've sorted it now and I'm very interested re flat pack furniture!
Thanks everyone

There was a lot about this a few years ago.

It’s annoying, and the sizing of new build housing in the country is scandalous, but you don’t really have any come back. The onus is on you to measure.

Still laughing at Pivot

We couldn’t get a bed up our stairs so we cut it in half and put hinges on it (metal frame).

Single wardrobe that was prebuilt had to have doors removed to get around top banister.

King mattress marked the walls to squeeze though - there was no other way and I wasn’t going smaller !

Some stuff has had to be a ‘refused delivery’ as there was no way it was getting upstairs and mine also is a large modern home with wide door ways

With a new build house, frankly you should be grateful this is your biggest problem. It is common to have to have lots of things fixed in the first two years.

@TotorosFurryBehind

With a new build house, frankly you should be grateful this is your biggest problem. It is common to have to have lots of things fixed in the first two years.

she should be Grateful 😳

that her sofas don't fit up her £400,000 stairs 🤣

Ive heard it all now 😏

Hahahaha
Yabu

We have a similar set up to you. We hoisted the sofa over the balcony and in via the front doors, only way!

French doors

I'd be annoyed too. But I don't think you have any come back here. But you can try.

I lived in a house like that for a couple of years. It was blindingly obvious from the first viewing that getting furniture in would be a nightmare, and anything I bought was primarily for ease of getting it up the stairs.

We brought ours in via the balcony. Same with king size bed frame

Following on from a few of the comments here:

I've been designing show homes for UK developers for over 25 years and I would say the three storey townhouses with first floor living rooms only became common about 15-20 years ago. When we first started to fit them out we encountered exactly the problems described!

The way it works is this: we generally get our sofas made especially for each show home by dedicated trade-only upholstery companies, and with townhouses we know that we have to instruct them to supply the sofas with removable bolt-on arms. Our installation team can assemble these sofas on site - and of course the feet can be removed and reattached if necessary. If a house appears on plan to have a really twisty narrow staircase I would even ask for a bolt-on back as well! I would never specify a readymade sofa from a retail supplier for a show home if it had to go up a staircase - only if it's going in a ground floor room with straightforward access. As for taking out a window - it would be a rare event for a developer to go to that much trouble for us - if the sofa doesn't fit they would regard it as entirely our problem and expect a replacement immediately!

It may be worth the OP and neighbours looking at the underside of their sofas and peeling back a corner of the layer of functional fabric that covers the base, to have a look/feel if the arms are held on by bolts which can be undone to get the sofa into sections which can fit up the stairs and be reassembled. If the modular corner sofa is a modern style with straight arms there may be a chance. The other option of course is an Ikea sofa which you have to assemble yourself anyway as others have suggested.

Single (3') divan bases can cause the same issue although it doesn't seem to arise too often - a self-assembly bed frame is the answer then.

The design companies I've worked for have never used 'minituarised' or 'scaled down' furniture so in my experience this is an urban myth (the 170cm single bed mentioned previously may have been a child's extendable bed e.g. the Minnen from Ikea). Basically, the onus is on the designer to specify furniture that is the appropriate size for each house and spend time scaling it onto the floor plan to make sure it will fit. It's just down to experience and having a good range of furniture suppliers to choose from - many of whom are trade-only. Ideally developers would have a little instruction sheet to hand out to purchasers of townhouses so that they can choose a sofa accordingly, as anyone who hasn't encountered this before would be very unlikely to know!

We had to take a bay window out to get our (massive) sofa into our last house.

@NiceGerbil

There's a Douglas Adams book where this happens

Turns out a time/space machine had opened a door at the turn on the stairs so they got it round some and then stuck as the door has gone.

Could that be an explanation?

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is the book

@NiceGerbil fun fact- I went to the same college as Douglas Adams, and the college accommodation I had in my third year was where that book was set! And yes- the turn into the bedroom at the top of the stairs was very tight!

Someone mentioned Nabru, I can also recommend. Ours is about 10 years old and as good as new still. We got a huge corner sofa and single chair and the cushions haven't even slightly sunk or gone thinner. Can change the covers too which I may do one day if I ever get sick of it.

@SpiderinaWingMirror

My BIL overcame that with a decent carpenter who redid the banister and newel poet to lift out (and bolt back in). Cost up that solution and ask the developer for a contribution.

Clever shit, that is! 👏 I'm impressed with his ingenuity. When you live a long time in a house it's the kind of investment that you'll never regret making.

There is a company which promises to be able to help with this exact problem: www.sofaassist.com/
Never used them but read about them on previous Mumsnet threads.

@nocoolnamesleft

I lived in a house like that for a couple of years. It was blindingly obvious from the first viewing that getting furniture in would be a nightmare, and anything I bought was primarily for ease of getting it up the stairs.

I agree, and it’s a very common problem when moving house that existing furniture doesn’t fit. We viewed a house years ago, that I loved, and my husband commented there was no way we would get our furniture in, and I responded but you don’t buy a house round your furniture, of course he was right, we’d had have to have factored in buying new beds, wardrobes, dining table, sofas etc. So a huge additional cost.

However what I don’t get is the neighbours who have had three sofa deliveries. That’s batshit, you’re clearly told to measure before you buy. Why anyone would repeatedly buy sofas that don’t fit, is beyond me.

But trying to get your existing sofas in to a new house, and having a problem. as witnessed by this thread, is hugely common. I’ve never ever heard of anyone getting compo for it.

I live in a Housing Association property on a new build estate. The HA properties are built to a better standard to ensure they met Homes for Life. All the rooms and doorways have to be big enough for wheelchairs. Unlike my poor neighbours who gave the same floor plan but more rooms squeezed in to maximise price.

@BlueThistles thanks for the snarky comment. In the south east, in the area we live, this is cheap for a new, 4 bed family home.

Unless the staircase in the showroom was a different size to yours, you don't really have a leg to stand on. Or a sofa to sit on. (Sorry.)

They'll just say it was your responsibility to measure the staircase.

Old properties can have this problem too particularly upper floor flats. It was common for windows to be lifted out. You always need to measure up furniture.