New build garden size inaccurate/too small

[ShezK21]

We are buying a new build and the developers took forever to get back to us on the measurements for our garden. I thought in the meantime I could roughly work it out from the site plan, given that we had all the measurements of the house. So the house is 30 feet from front to back and the plans showed that the garden is the same length. So I estimated it was hopefully at least 25 feet long and as its wider than it is long, and based on house measurements, I estimated it was 30 to 35 feet across.

I know they aren't completely accurate, however when we finally did get the measurements back they have told me the garden is 17 feet long by 20 feet across.
The plans actually show the garden being almost twice the size it actually is! Are they allowed to be this far off and what can I do about it?
Lastly for a 3 bed, 3 storey house, housing 2 adults and 2 kids, is a 17 by 20 foot garden big enough?

I agree.

All the rooms in the house that go from one side to the other are not more than 13feet. That's less than 4m wide??? So when you take into account a hall or stairwell, the space is even smaller! Have you seen a show home of similar dimensions?
What does your DH have planned for the garden? If its growing things- I'd suggest raised beds. New builds are notorious for leaving all the crappy cement, rocks, fag ends etc in the garden and covering with a thin layer of soil and lawn.

13ft wide house is also tiny so I guess the house & garden are both dinky.

Personally I wouldn't choose a house & garden that size and would withdraw and buy an older property with decent dimensions. I would argue the return of any deposit too on the basis that the dimensions has changed.

(I can't visualise property sizes in metres, only feet. Although we may have officially gone metric in the 60s, it is very, very recently, last few years, that property listings have changed).

What’s the bit that isn’t pink but is also enclosed by a thick black line?

I can totally see what you mean op if the larger space around the pink space on your diagram is what you were told was the garden. It looks far, far larger in the diagram.
'indicative' or not id be making a complaint to whatever relevant ombudsman because that is mega misleading.and id definitely be pulling out of the sale given there's a cutaway corner to it what you'll be left with will be ridiculously small!

Pretty sure thats what was 'indicated' to OP was the garden with the property!

So it's not even 17 x 20ft because you've got a massive triangle chopped off one corner. What's beyond that black line is it public space/footpath?
I'd be pulling out of this one.

Honestly OP 13ft wide is an extremely narrow property the downstairs rooms can hardly be 3m wide once you allow for stairs. Avoid new builds - you really do get so much more for your money with an older home.

That is very narrow OP

Average Victorian terrace is 4.4m wide. Thats centre line party wall / party wall, not internal dims. Internal dims would be about 4m so approx 13ft.

Im guessing this this hse doesn’t have a hall or the living room would be really quite small. 🤷‍♀️

It looks like they've taken some way for a path between the backs of the houses.

13' is quite a normal width for a town house. My old terraced house was just under 15' and a lot of the new builds for sale when we were looking to move were narrower and did have postage stamp gardens, barely big enough for a rotary airer and a couple of chairs.

I'd be extremely concerned about having neighbours at the rear less than 40ft away. For some people a tiny garden would be perfect: tubs, paving, nothing much to maintain. But not for a family house.

That's cycle storage in the car park by a block of flats.

I'm in my mid 50s and can visualise some thing better in metric and others better in imperial. Anything between the size of a person and a house is definitely an imperial thing for me. I can look at a room and think "that's about 12' wide" and would need my fingers and thumbs to work it out in metres, much like I think in English and would have to translate it into French.

I could pick up a book and visualise in either cm or inches, though. Cooking ingredients can either be g or oz and I can convert between the two almost instantaneously but I have no idea what I weigh in kg. I think it's just a quirk of having grown up with both systems for many of us, with metric having been a school thing but almost everything in real life being imperial, right down to buying a quarter of sweets or pint of milk.

Yep not sure why it's cut off like that. Behind is a car park for a block of flats

Oo
Randoms wandering around the back of your property.
Your Gardens very exposed
Are you really sure about this buy.
Im guessing the value reflects the lack of privacy…….

Floor plans

Did you think the extra bit (in green) was to be your garden? That’s a large discrepancy. I would be down with a tape measure. Presuming the CS building (garage?) is on your drawings it should be easy to establish the difference.

I know what you mean. As an architect ( late 50s) I only ever work in metric I just can’t visualise feet and always have to convert it. ( even though I was a student in America for a while )
13ft means nothing to me but I can visualise 4m.

It does look like a typical 3 bed, 3 storey property, they are built high and narrow nowadays for a smaller footprint but regular 3 bed sized living space, I wouldn't expect much garden with this type of property, they are the equivalent of the victorian terrace.

Have you physically been inside the house OP? Or a show house of the exact same type? 1.8m is incredibly tight for a kitchen...

From that plan I don't know why you thought it would be any more than 2/3 length of the house. Which fence did you think you could move?

If you are going off the house dimensions it seems like those must be wrong too, the house must be the same width as the garden surely? Can you sneak in with a measuring tape and check?

Get out of the sale op. New build gardens are generally tiny. They cram houses as much as possible and rooms also are usually tiny.

Yes, the green plus the pink is what our garden was supposed to be. When they gave me the measurements, I remeasured in relation to the measurements from the house and that's what the pink is.