Tweet
Hi,
I'm looking for advice in relation to a potential legal dispute over a building defect on my property.
We bought the property about a year ago, and the previous owners had the loft converted about a year before that. The loft conversion involved the building of a balcony.
The balcony was recently damaged in a storm, and when we had a few tradesmen look at it in order to repair it, we were informed that the construction of the balcony was of a poor standard, and that there were obvious faults with it that led to the storm damage. The balcony itself is somewhat unsafe at the moment so we need to resolve the situation soon. We had three separate tradesmen look at it and all three independently pointed out the same construction faults.
In order to rectify the problem fully, we are probably looking at a bill of £10,000, although that’s only a ballpark figure provided by one of the builders – we haven’t got a proper quote yet.
Some additional considerations:
- The builder who did the conversion had issued a 5 year guarantee for it, and we’re still within the 5 years. However, the guarantee was issued to the previous owner, and it clearly states that it is not transferrable to future owners of the property.
- We had a full building survey done before we bought the property, and the report didn’t mention any problems with the balcony. We think that the problem should have been spotted, given what the builders who’ve since looked at it have all said.
- The £10,000 figure relates to the most expensive solution, which is basically rebuilding the entire balcony the way it should have been built in the first place. There are possibly cheaper ways of fixing it but they are patch work jobs that will look bad.
- Interestingly, the same builder who did the original work also did the loft conversion for our neighbour at a later date and he built the same style balcony for them. However, their balcony was built “properly”, i.e. in the same way as we’ve been advised to rebuild ours now.
My questions in relation to the above are:
1. Do we have a case against either the builder or the surveyor?
2. If so, what steps should we take next - should we contact the surveyor directly, should we contact a solicitor or should we contact an independent surveyor to ascertain officially whether the first surveyor should have spotted the issue?
Any help would be much appreciated - as we have literally no experience in this sort of thing!
I'm looking for advice in relation to a potential legal dispute over a building defect on my property.
We bought the property about a year ago, and the previous owners had the loft converted about a year before that. The loft conversion involved the building of a balcony.
The balcony was recently damaged in a storm, and when we had a few tradesmen look at it in order to repair it, we were informed that the construction of the balcony was of a poor standard, and that there were obvious faults with it that led to the storm damage. The balcony itself is somewhat unsafe at the moment so we need to resolve the situation soon. We had three separate tradesmen look at it and all three independently pointed out the same construction faults.
In order to rectify the problem fully, we are probably looking at a bill of £10,000, although that’s only a ballpark figure provided by one of the builders – we haven’t got a proper quote yet.
Some additional considerations:
- The builder who did the conversion had issued a 5 year guarantee for it, and we’re still within the 5 years. However, the guarantee was issued to the previous owner, and it clearly states that it is not transferrable to future owners of the property.
- We had a full building survey done before we bought the property, and the report didn’t mention any problems with the balcony. We think that the problem should have been spotted, given what the builders who’ve since looked at it have all said.
- The £10,000 figure relates to the most expensive solution, which is basically rebuilding the entire balcony the way it should have been built in the first place. There are possibly cheaper ways of fixing it but they are patch work jobs that will look bad.
- Interestingly, the same builder who did the original work also did the loft conversion for our neighbour at a later date and he built the same style balcony for them. However, their balcony was built “properly”, i.e. in the same way as we’ve been advised to rebuild ours now.
My questions in relation to the above are:
1. Do we have a case against either the builder or the surveyor?
2. If so, what steps should we take next - should we contact the surveyor directly, should we contact a solicitor or should we contact an independent surveyor to ascertain officially whether the first surveyor should have spotted the issue?
Any help would be much appreciated - as we have literally no experience in this sort of thing!
Comment