Can you ask big developers to change the floor plan if buying off plan??

[Inclusionist]

We are thinking about buying a Taylor Wimpey home.

The floor plan we can afford is a bit of a compromise on 'utility' space but has 5 bathrooms which is total overkill for the three of us and I hate cleaning bathrooms.

Can we ask them to make a small cupboard and the middle level cloakroom (which are side by side) into one space and plumb it for a laundry room?

Also, will future buyers want 5 bathrooms more than 4 and a utility room??

Afraid I don't know the answer to the main question, except to wonder who on earth designs new houses.

But in terms of future buyers, surely nobody sane wants 5 bathrooms!!!

Don't know the answer to the question, but a separate utility room is loads more valuable than a bathroom IMO
Why do developers go so crazy for bathrooms?

of they say no ( as most seem to in my experience ) then don't fret - as it's not too difficult to modify after you have completed . it's just a bit of a waste - but looking at the bigger picture... this small bit of waste will soon pay dividends to you as this will suit your needs better as a family - and you could maybe make better use small utility as a boot room instead?!

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I would love to have a boot room Wookie, sadly this fictional utility room would be on the first floor of a town house. We are pretty much limited to a town house by the budget. First floor not a bad place for a laundry though because it's closer to the bedrooms.

Yy to 5 bathrooms being bonkers, glad it's not just me who thinks that.

We asked (about 15 years ago) - they bricked up one door and changed the kitchen layout. But the bricking up they did after the house had been built rather than build the wall in 1 go. Very strange.

What they wouldn't do was install some extra bits in the shower due to plumbing. This was before the house was built and it is so frustrating now to see large showers with a fixed head AND a removable shower head - so much easier for cleaning.

I bought one off plan from them -I would never, ever touch one with a barge pole again. It was wired incorrectly so was extremely dangerous. Despite having them back umpteen times re the electrics This was only discovered by the local electricity emergency people after my ex was thrown across the kitchen. We weren't the only ones, and despite promising to check the other houses, my neighbour had the same problem discovered later. Everything else was shoddy, shoddy, shoddy.

I am sure you are right Onesleep but we are buying deep in the commuter belt and are poor teachers and we can get a good bit more for our money from TW. We also really like the houses on this particular development, even this 'compromise' house is a great layout compared to some we've seen.

sorry - I miss interpreted - thinking you were changing a Wc to a utility room because the current utility room ( I assumed to be downstairs with a door to outside ) was too small - hence the boot room suggestion !

Thanks sparkle that is useful info.

It looks like we might be best to just have it done after completion. As said ^ it does seem wasteful however, I suppose if all 800 buyers wanted a tweak they'd be building until 2075.

As sparkle said, TW will refuse due to NHBC but get the site manager on side and he may agree to trades doing it out of hours.
Our TW house was delayed by 6 months due to shockingly bad site managers however the guy in charge when we completed was amazing. He agreed to some minor stuff being changed (Left skirting boards off bathrooms and tiled down to floor so that our tiler could tile up to them so it was more like a wet room and also a room we were having wood flooring fitted in so that we didn't have to have that horrible beading all round the room) and even let our fireplace be fitted before completion so we could save the VAT.
Keep the site manager sweet is my top tip. Taylor Wimpey are great, have bought 3 houses from them and have had no huge issues.

Thanks Heels. Good tips. Good to hear someone be positive about Taylor Wimpey too- we really like the houses on this particualr build.

However, nobody I have spoken to has said 'of course you need 5 different places to have a wee' so I think we will be trying to find some way of going ahead with the laundry room plan!!

My current TW house has 4 loo's and there are only the three of us. To be honest my mum stays in the guest room once a week and she has her own bathroom but I can't remember the last time I went in there let alone used it lol. She uses it and cleans it.

I know what you mean - I ripped out an ensuite from my last house.

This house has 4 bathrooms for 5 bedrooms (6 people).... and I'm actually coming round to it. I like the privacy of the en suite when I wax my bikine line , and we have a designated 'boys' and 'girls' bathroom - which has made my Dd very happy (even happy enough to clean the girls bathroom!). WC is WC for guests, obviously, but I also keep spare toothbrushes there, for bad school day mornings.