Hi
I debated writing this post but I felt like I needed to vent my frustration and I need some advice and I though this maybe the best place to start.
I don’t know where to really start as I am very limited what I can say due to legal reasons but ill try and give you the jist and i hope someone can give me some advice.
We saved up for years for our beautiful new house in view of extending. After years of saving we could afford to do an extension. We instructed some builders who were recommended to us and we had faith the job could be done properly. We instructed the builders to extend out back 3m which consisted of merging the current kitchen and the dining room, then extend out back 3m to create an open plan living area. We were then going to have a 3 month break then to complete a side extension.
To cut a long story short once the kitchen extension was coming to an end it became apparent we had serious subfloor issues, which resulted in us having to remove our beautiful wooden floor and our brand new kitchen (which is now ruined) to get to the root of the problem. We uncovered the floor had no DPM. During this process, we uncovered that the electrics had not been done to code and could have been fatal, the steel is not structurally sound that’s holding the back of the house up and the builders have diverted from the original calculations along with lots of other issues. They have broken building regulations on 5 areas and basically the whole extension is flawed. The issues could have been fatal if they were not caught Intime. Our inspection company (private) issued a notice of contravention which has just expired yesterday to the builders, this is an order for them to come back and rectify. They have of course refused due to the risks of the job and the costs to rectify and all the costs we had lost. The job of rectifying the steel has high risks on other areas of the house also.
We are in the position now where the The Local authority are now involved, We are due to have meeting with them next week but as far as im aware the LA will issue an enforcement on the builders to rectify all the work, but I am not certain.
We are living in a building site at the moment and having a family meal is impossible as we have no kitchen and living on a concrete floor which is and has impacted our daily life especially as I have two children. Ive now given up work as the house was in such a dangerous state that we needed to get the house back to a substandard level. We have undertaken the urgent remedial work but we still have of remedial work to undertake which the builders are refusing to do due to the high costs. I am hoping the LA enforcement will get things moving but each stage is so slow and we are still living in the property which is just sheer frustration.
I can’t really get into the emotional side of how I feel as once I start I just won’t stop, but if anyone can offer me any advice or have been in a similar situation before I would love to hear from you.
Thanks Lisa x