New home, paint is a mess!

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I'm wondering if anyone has any experience or advice on how we can fix the mess left behind by previous owners..

They built an extension a few years ago and it would seem they have not sealed the fresh plaster and just painted directly on top (also just painted around the fridge which has bare plaster behind it!?)..

As a result the paint is patchy and looks ridiculous, it includes ceilings so we don't want to line it with wallpaper.. do we have to sand it? Is there a special type of paint? Or will lots of layers do the trick?

Frustrating. We are pretty capable of diy-ing but I'm at a loss here..

Are you supposed to seal,it op? Genuine question because when we had building work done and loads of new plaster, I applied a mist coat first, then cracked on with two coats of emulsion and job done. The mist coat was just watered down emulsion. It all looks fine.
It might just be a bad plastering job if it's really uneven. I would have thought just rubbing down the bad bits and repainting would be sufficient.

This doesn't appear to have been given a mist coat.. we would have to rub down the whole room..

Have a go at getting a scraper behind the old paint first, you might find it just peels off in quite big sheets if it's really failed to adhere to the plaster, a lot easier and less messy than sanding.

Sanding should be a very last resort, steaming and scraping should do it.

Lucisky the mist coat 'seals' it

Thanks @jemihap I guess I'll give that ago, was hoping someone might no some 'magic' paint trick as I'd rather paint for days than strip a wall..

@ineedtostopbeingsolazy, oh, thanks for that. It was what the builder told me to do. I honestly didn't know that this 'sealed' it. I was worried for a minute that I'd missed some special expensive cans of plaster sealant!