Which extras for new build?

[Newbuildtightwads]

We are buying our first house and it's a new build. The builder is giving us a 4% deposit topup and because of this they cannot give us any extras.

There are a few things we want with the house but we can't afford do everything through the builder. Which of these would be ok to do at a later stage?

1. Outside electric socket
2. Outside tap
3. Towel rail radiators
4. Shower over bath in main bathroom

We are going to pay extra for dishwasher plumbing and a gas hob and 2 extra electric sockets as we feel these need to be done during the build.
Turf we will do next year.
Flooring we are going with a local company as it's half the cost of what the builder charges.

Any advice is appreciated.

Personally, I find it frustrating that some of these aren't standard.

Tap and outdoor plug should be easier enough to do later depending on the layout - we've just added an external plug that cost us £60.00 including socket etc.

I'd want the shower and towel radiator done, as would be harder to add a shower later.

Good Luck

I would go with outside socket and towel radiators.
Outside tap is quite straightforward.
Not sure about the shower

I agree with pp shower would be my number one priority.

I would focus on the bathroom items through the builder as then they would be responsible for any defects which appear in the first year (usually) as well as any potential damage to tiles/walls when they are installed. If you do this later and crack a tile or the like, you would be responsible for the replacements.

Re flooring - just bear in mind that the builder almost certainly won’t allow you access to the house before completion, so your flooring people won’t be able to get in until then (they might be allowed in to measure up but won’t be allowed to fit any flooring in advance of completion).

If you’re moving from rented so you can have an overlap after completing on the new house this probably doesn’t matter, but if you will have to move into the new house on completion day bear in mind that you will be moving into a house with no flooring and then they will be trying to do the flooring around all your stuff.

We bought a new build recently and we ended up getting flooring via the developer even though it was more expensive because we just didn’t want the hassle of the above issues.

I am in a new build. It came complete with all appliances properly installed and plumbed in, including 2 shower cubicles and an over bath shower, and outside tap. The garden was turfed (over rubble! - that was my only grumble), but no outside electric socket - I have had that installed since. I do not think the 4% deposit top-up should be an excuse not to provide basic appliances properly installed. Maybe he could up it to 6% and dispense with the roof!!

Incidentally all flooring was included (and I had a choice of type/colour) in kitchen, hall, dining room, utility room. I only paid extra for the carpets in living room and bedrooms.

We went with our own flooring, was a pain having concrete floors for two weeks but worth the few thousand savings. Did help we massively upsized so wasn’t lots of furniture to move.

anything you would have to remove bathroom tiles for get them to do it. We’ve also had two of our showers leak since we moved in which they’ve had to fix and redo, including painting the ceiling downstairs and redoing some tiling.

have you got another shower to use or are you reliant on that one for anything? We didn’t bother since we have three en-suites with showers so nobody would be using it, left it as just a bath.

Our last house was a newbuild, when we went to have an outside tap fitted retrospectively the only place it could go was the side of the house (which was on a public path), so we couldn't do it. Might be better to fit that first, but I guess it depends what and where your pipes etc are.

Shower. Assuming there are radiators, it would be a ase of switching them.
Outside tap is fairly easy.
Not sure about outside socket.

Do the shower, and potentially radiators. Anything else I would leave and get done by others

Thanks everyone, it's pretty unanimous for the shower!
We're both putting in overtime to try and get as much done as we can through the developer.

@Mischance they are so tight, nothing is included at all. There's other developers nearby that are much more generous but they don't have anything available in our price range.
Did you do a pre-completion inspection? We're booking an independent snagging inspector but I'm not sure whether we should book an independent pre-completion inspector too?

We're moving from rented so having the flooring done after completion isn't a problem. It would be £5800 for the cheapest option with the developer or £3000 for mid range flooring with a local shop!

Shower should go in otherwise you have to hold out for tiling. They are all luxuries really so can wait but I would miss outside tap and it will cost very little

What company is this new build through?

We brought a new build (redrow) and all the above bar the outside socket came included as standard.
We also got to choose our kitchen surfaces, cabinets, door handles etc.

Our upgrades was a build in dishwasher and turf for the garden.

However our build didn't come with any flooring. So we had to do all that ourselves before moving in but that wasn't an issue, meant we could choose our own for each rooms etc.

@Minnierose11 it's Persimmon

Our developer included turf to front and back gardens, Amtico flooring downstairs and carpet in the living room and bedrooms, bathroom flooring, towel radiators, double walk in shower in en suite, plus bath and hair wash hose, over bath shower in the bathroom, dishwasher, fridge freezer, both integrated.

We added an outside socket later.

Makes sense. Have friends who’ve been on a persimmon development / good luck.

make sure you log and chase all the snagging.

We bought from persimmons twice, in 2014 and 2016. Both times all kitchen appliances were included and fitted. No flooring, no outside tap, no outside socket, no shower in the main bathroom and not any increase to the deposit.
4% may be worth more than having these jobs done by them.
We did ask for bathroom tiling and towel radiators which cost extra but it was much easier to have it done before we moved in.
The rest of it was cheaper and we had more choices doing after we moved in.

Think them not providing basic kitchen appliances sucks but maybe this is the standard practice nowadays

The towel rail radiators you could do yourself, look on screwfix for prices. The electrics and plumbing are best done during the build

@sundaymorningbliss none of the developers offer appliances as standard round here except for the oven and hob. We're not bothered because I prefer freestanding, but having to pay for them to install the dishwasher plumbing sucks.

They also won't move any electrical sockets but you can pay extra to have additional sockets. There's no flexibility at all, it's frustrating.