This is likely to be long, bear with me!
We bought our new build from a national builder in June 2015. We had a lot of issues with the sales person lying to us and as a result the builder turfed the garden for us as an apology. This was a surprise on moving in and we wouldn't have wanted it done had we had a choice - we hadn't planned to fully turf the garden.
For the first year, the turf was perfect. The whole garden was flat, no drainage issues at all, we maintained the grass - cut it, treated it, reseeded throughout the year. The two houses to the right of us each had drainage issues and in 2016 the builder ripped out their turf, added drainage and returfed the gardens. At that point, our garden was perfectly level with next door's garden but after their drainage was done, the garden level dropped by about 4 inches. The patio we had just put in had some issues and we had to keep fixing the edge due to the edge of our garden sliding into theirs.
Then our garden developed a large dip (on the side closest to the neighbours) which is completely waterlogged for 10 months of every year. We had the builder out repeatedly to look at it while still in the warranty and their response was always that there was either nothing wrong or it was 3m from the house so they had no liability.
It's got worse every year and that side of the garden is mostly unusable. We add topsoil, sand and seed every year but it makes no difference. We've planted trees and plants to try to help with drainage and continued to treat as advised by the builder.
We are out of the 2 year snagging period now, but I recently contacted the builder and explained the situation. For the first time, I asked them to prove that the work they did in the neighbours garden didn't cause the problem and they sent round an independent turf specialist. This specialist told me the garden was unusable, needed drainage and the problem was obvious.
The builder claims that the turf specialist claims the garden is flat (the dip is very visible!) and shady, therefore we need to just treat it for moss. They won't carry out any remedial work.
NHBC don't cover gardens after 3 years but advised that we could get legal advice to go to small claims court.
I've asked the builder for the following:
- A copy of the report from the turf specialist
- Evidence that the problem wasn't caused by the work they have done
- Written confirmation that the turf was done as a goodwill gesture and not requested by us
- A copy of the original garden plan as it was supposed to gently slope towards the back and it definitely doesn't!
I've asked the same turf specialist for a quote to repair the problem.
Is this something that we could go to small claims for? We feel so strongly that the problem only started after our neighbours had their garden done, but I don't think that the neighbours can be held liable. I also feel frustrated that we will probably have to spend more money fixing a problem with turf that we didn't ask for!
Finally, the other half of the garden is in great condition so it's not just down to rubbish new build gardens!