new home advice

we are in the process of buying a new redrow home that almost ready. just needs a bit of finishing off. we are required to exchange in the next 2 weeks and complete by the end of june.

we had a homebuyers report done on the property and its come back with a few points that in the surveyors opinions should be addressed sooner rather than later.

1. he seems to think that the property might have been built on a flood plain and has asked me to get the solicitors to carry out checks (which i have instructed). the property is about 500m from a river that has flood in the past. the environment agency website shows the risk of flooding at 1.3%. is this serious?

2. the damp course has been laid incorrectly. on the front elevation the course is 2 brick layers about the level of the course for the rest of the house.

3. one of the bay windows has been incorrectly fitted.

4. an external door to the utility room is poorly fitted and needs sorting out

5. 'special' bricks havent been used for the bay windows and the arches on the first floor. instead standard bricks have been cut and used. i am not sure what special bricks are.

6. the finish of the mortar and pointing is slightly substandard. the thickness of the mortar layer is more than 10mm.

i have pointed this out to the developers in a pre-snagging discussion and mentioned that apart from point 1, on which i will wait for the solicitors advice, the rest are issues that require a fair bit of construction work and i;d like that to be sorted prior to completion. I know I have them at my mercy now and once the money is handed over, i wont have as much bargaining power.

i was told at the time of reservation that the front door would have a white GRP surround. They have then gone and fitted a beige-brown GCS (cast stone) surround I dont like the new fascia and the developers now say that since this is phase 2 of the project they will be leaving the new surround on as this has been agreed with the council. The sales rep has admitted that she made a mistake and was unaware of the change of spec and has promised a full refund of the deposit should i choose not to proceed. Whats the best course of action?

All advise is gratefully received.

:x

Don't buy a Redrow house. We had a snagging list of over 130 items and six months later we are still waiting for all of them to be put right. It has been an absolute nightmare.

Do you have the option of not buying theehouse? The list of defects seems quite short. The flooding issue is a concern when they say 1% - what does that mean? - 1% chance of a flood in a year - i.e. once every hundred years.