Plumbing Negligence?

[Judgej]

Hi,

I am new to this forum so apology if I am posting in the wrong place.

We bought a house from Taylor Wimpey 2.5 years ago and have recently noticed that there was a slow leaking tap. This has caused water damage to both the front room under the bathroom and the adjoining bedroom.

I contacted Taylor Wimpey who told me that as the house in over 2 years old they will not repair the damage and I should contact NHBC.
NHBC told me that they do not cover plumbing and I should contact our buildings insurance.

We have then employed an independant plumber to fix the work. On doing this he informed us that the reason for the leak was that on inital installation the builders had not put a washer on the hot water tap and had instead bodged it with tape.

In my view this is negligence on the builders behalf and I would like them to compensate us for the cost of the repair and our insurance excess.

Does anybody know if I would have a case legally for doing this.

Thanks for your help.

[SteveF]

Hi Judgej

I am not a lawyer or indeed a household insurance specialist however I have extensive construction and property related experience including Building Defects Investigation and Diagnosis. I can offer you my opinion based on this experience if you consider it may help.

In general circumstances there appears to be very little evidence that courts will consider claims for negligence levelled at builders or contractors when it comes to "fairly" simple matters as you have mentioned. I say this because regardless of the various legislation and routes for recourse purportedly available, there is no outright peg that courts and the judicial system can hang their hat on. You will have read comments no doubt that suggest you have more legal standing with regards to a faulty tin of beans than you do with a faulty home, well i would go along with that point of view.

In reality I think that there are two issues to consider;

1. The defect which you mention suggests negligence on behalf of the builder has been reported to you by the plumber who carried out the repair. Unless this is supported by detailed reports and statements by an "Independent" Professionally Qualified Person, the courts would more than likely not accept this as evidence.

2. The courts would ask if their were other routes that you could have taken to mitigate the costs i.e. Household Insurance or NHBC. As the answer would have been yes then i believe that they would have expected you to have reached a reasonable resolution via these routes. The fact that NHBC have it clear in the warranty they are not responsible for these issues and that the builders 2 year period is past thus rendering them "not responsible" under the warranty would lead others (court) to consider that you unfortunately have suffered outside anyones liability.

I think if i was in your situation....and its easy to say, i know.....but i would draw a line under the whole affair and not stress about it any longer. Also it is true to say going through the legal process is not inexpensive and with no guaranteed positive outcome is it really worth the aggro?

SteveF

[Maitri]

I am really sorry to hear about your problems. I am currently fighting with the NHBC and builder and have been without heating / hot water since January and it is really hard to realise that as new build purchasers people have no rights. If you had employed a plumber and he had used tape to make a connection to a pipe, if I am correct in my understanding, you would have up to 6 years to bring a case against your plumber under the Goods & Services Act, yet as new build purchasers we are not covered by the Act. I simply cannot believe that if I employed a plumber to re-plumb my house, or to put in a heating system or bought double glazing, or had a new roof I would be covered by consumer law AND have 10 year + guarantees on work and goods, but as a new build buyer people have 2 years for the builder to bring a property up to standard (with difficulty) and then anything that comes to light after 2 years is not covered by anyone. I am so shocked, as everyone keeps saying, we would have more comeback on a faulty packet of crisps than on a house purchase. The watchdog is encouraging people to bring manufacturers of white goods to court if say a washing machine fails to be viable for repair within 5 years in order to force manufacturers to raise standards yet as I keep saying in this post purchasers of new builds have no consumer rights after 2 years, and an impossible fight to get anything other than piecemeal repairs done within the first 2 years. Builders therefore know that goods / services only have to last 2 years therefore do shoddy work and buy cheap goods and just walk away. I was shocked to read yesterday, that the housing minister is changing the rules governing the standards of social housing that historically have always been of a higher standard than private sector housing. Houses built with public money on public land always had to be built to the highest standards (quite why houses that are being sold for £200000 + don't have to be heaven only knows). During the recession, as you may know, many of the properties that builders could not sell, councils could not buy because they were not built to council house standards!! To get round this the housing minister is now doing away with those standards and in future social housing built with public money will now be built to the same awful standards as private sector housing - Great news ay!!

[Maitri]

The courts would ask if their were other routes that you could have taken to mitigate the costs i.e. Household Insurance or NHBC. As the answer would have been yes then i believe that they would have expected you to have reached a reasonable resolution via these routes. The fact that NHBC have it clear in the warranty they are not responsible for these issues and that the builders 2 year period is past thus rendering them "not responsible" under the warranty would lead others (court) to consider that you unfortunately have suffered outside anyones liability.

Whilst agreeing this would not be worth taking further, in law does this come outside anyones liability? I have been doing quite a bit of thinking about this the past week having found out that new builds are not covered by the Sale of Goods & Services Act. I am a simple housewife with no qualifications so what would I know, but somewhere along the line did the builder enter in a contract to deliver a property that had been built to certain standards ? So why, if those standards at any time (or certainly within the 6 years allowed for consumers protected under the Sale of Goods) can be shown not to have been met, should the 2 year rule apply? I don't know anything about law but if an issue can be shown to have never met standards would a new house buyer (having done all they could via the NHBC) have a case for breach of contract ? Is the contract to build to certain standards with the home buyer or the NHBC? Again what would I know, but certainly the 2 year rule, if you read through the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Law, seems to tick just about every box. Does anyone know if anybody has ever attempted a challenge regarding this in a court of law? I am wondering what the NHBC would do if 1000 + new house buyers got together and attemped to do just that. My other thoughts this week have been about guarantees. We have no guarantees on anything in the property beyond the NHBC 10 year warranty, yet industry standard for double glazing I believe is 10 years. Everest and others offer lifetime guarantees on their glazing never breaking down, and most offer 10 years on the installation, so why do builders not offer any guarantees beyond 2 years? Clearly the NHBC Warranty does not take the place of a standard guarantee as in years 3 - 10 the NHBC only cover an actual breakdown in the glazing (misting) and only then if the cost of repairing it is over £1400. So why is there not an obligation on builders to provide guarantees on windows / plumbing / roof / electrical etc etc just as there would be if a private home owner had this work done themselves. Who would purchase new windows or a roof without a guarantee? Ikea offer 25 years on their kitchens and they are not expensive. If new house buyers are not covered by the Sale of Goods then why doesn't the law give them the protection of guarantees at least? Would this not to some degree improve standards given that currently a builder can put in any old rubbish, attempt piecemeal repairs for 2 years then walk away. So why doesn't this happen ? Surely the NHBC would be dealing with a lot less claims if new home buyers had some other recourse for shoddy workmanship and faulty goods and installations.

[SteveF]

Whilst agreeing this would not be worth taking further, in law does this come outside anyones liability? I have been doing quite a bit of thinking about this the past week having found out that new builds are not covered by the Sale of Goods & Services Act. I am a simple housewife with no qualifications so what would I know, but somewhere along the line did the builder enter in a contract to deliver a property that had been built to certain standards ? So why, if those standards at any time (or certainly within the 6 years allowed for consumers protected under the Sale of Goods) can be shown not to have been met, should the 2 year rule apply? I don't know anything about law but if an issue can be shown to have never met standards would a new house buyer (having done all they could via the NHBC) have a case for breach of contract ? Is the contract to build to certain standards with the home buyer or the NHBC? Again what would I know, but certainly the 2 year rule, if you read through the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Law, seems to tick just about every box. Does anyone know if anybody has ever attempted a challenge regarding this in a court of law? I am wondering what the NHBC would do if 1000 + new house buyers got together and attemped to do just that. My other thoughts this week have been about guarantees. We have no guarantees on anything in the property beyond the NHBC 10 year warranty, yet industry standard for double glazing I believe is 10 years. Everest and others offer lifetime guarantees on their glazing never breaking down, and most offer 10 years on the installation, so why do builders not offer any guarantees beyond 2 years? Clearly the NHBC Warranty does not take the place of a standard guarantee as in years 3 - 10 the NHBC only cover an actual breakdown in the glazing (misting) and only then if the cost of repairing it is over £1400. So why is there not an obligation on builders to provide guarantees on windows / plumbing / roof / electrical etc etc just as there would be if a private home owner had this work done themselves. Who would purchase new windows or a roof without a guarantee? Ikea offer 25 years on their kitchens and they are not expensive. If new house buyers are not covered by the Sale of Goods then why doesn't the law give them the protection of guarantees at least? Would this not to some degree improve standards given that currently a builder can put in any old rubbish, attempt piecemeal repairs for 2 years then walk away. So why doesn't this happen ? Surely the NHBC would be dealing with a lot less claims if new home buyers had some other recourse for shoddy workmanship and faulty goods and installations.

I am just carrying out a little research into legislation that i think could help in the case where the property is in England.

I will post once i have the info.

SteveF