Bloor home appalling standard, do we have to complete?

New Build Inspections

lg15

New Member
We are Purchasing a Bloor home, Glos. We have had our pre-occupation inspection , just 1 week before our fixed completion date 29th May. The standard of work is HORRENDUS. The builders have clearly bodged everything, they have forced a double oven into a single housing unit, the oven has buckled and been dented.... The only light switch to the kitchen lights in is the lounge.... The window frames are damaged, split.... The bath sealant is non existent.... The whole house needs redecorating full of grubby marks, pencil marks, stains.... The stone lintels are chipped and cracked... The kitchen windows don't shut... The stairs hand rail is a cheap b&q fix not the Ash specification... The roof tiles are chipped and not aligned... The doors are not sealed with mastic... The garage door frame is balanced on half a tile.... The electric box is damaged... The French door step is cracked and damaged needs replacing... The timber window cills are cracked and falling off... The bottom layer of stone work to the house and garage is completed saturated potential foundation or ground water issues.... And finally.... There are large cavities around fascia boards which do not sit flush with the house. We have complained and writted a 5 page complaint letter and Bloor have now mastic'd all of the fascia boards - and bodged all of the broken items!! The standard of work is appalling. We don't want to complete with the house as it stands, it isn't worth the money we are paying and we will need to spend thousands on it to rectify the awful workmanship. The rest of the development is in fair order but our house looks like a joke. What rights do we have to delay completion until the invasive works are done? They will not accept there are problems, they have told us the product is finished!! but you wouldn't buy a brand new car with a dent in it, why can they get away with it. Please help ! who can we go to for an independent view of whether we are being treated correctly or what action should we take?
 

NewHomeExpert

Well-Known Member
Don't complete on the home until you are 100% happy.
Get it independently snagged and inspected before legally completing too.
Bloor are terrible for putting things right once you are in. See the other posts!
You have been warned!
 

Darola

New Member
Hi, how have things worked out? We are buying a Bloor home and hope to complete in the next couple of months, must admit to being a little nervous after reading other people's experiences. Although Bloor don't seem to have the same level of bad press as some of the other developers.
 

ajay

New Member
"hi , noticed your post about buying a new Bloor home. how did that go? I'm looking at reserving a property with them in January and would like ro know what your experience has been. :) . Thank you , Ajay.
 

Darola

New Member
Hi. Been in 15 months now and the first 3 months was a bit of a battle, 143 snags and various others along the way - some caused actually resolving other snags! Everything is resolved now and we are really happy with the house. We had to escalate within Bloor to get the attention required as the original site manager was shit! Bad attitude with no attention to detail, but the guy the appointed to oversee our work finally got everything resolved. Expect things to need fixing, be patient and follow the process, be courteous if you need to escalate and you'll come out the other side with a great house! Good luck.
 

ajay

New Member
Hi

Hi Darola

Thank you for your reply. I am looking at a 3 bed in a brand new development in Ampthill. I have just placed an early reservation and have to make a decision (if I wish to proceed with the purchase of the property) in January. really stressed about it now! :(

Did you manage to get Bloor to throw in some freebies? I am worried that because it is an early reservation , they know I am keen on the property and not give me an leeway whatsoever. I am hoping to ask them if they will atleast put in flooring or pay some part of the stamp duty. Did you do an early reservation?

Thank you for your reply and hope to hear from you soon.

Thanks
 

Darola

New Member
Hi. Yes, we reserved off plan. It was a 5 bed 470k house, so we did get some freebies. We PXd are old house - reasonable offer but probably 10k less than we might have got if we'd sold ourselves - did mean that there was no rush for us to get out. They opened with the offer for our house + 10k off the stamp duty, we countered with an increase on our house of £3k, all of the stamp duty and £3.5k to spend on extras. Which they accepted.

Sort your own flooring out, they charge a fortune and the quality isn't great. Think we saved about £5k on what they would have charged. It's better to negotiate/choose the more integral things off the catalogue that are difficult to retrofit. To be honest everything on the catalogue is overpriced, relative to what you could get it yourself, but if you can negotiate as part of the deal then it just makes life a bit easier when you move in with less to do.

Don't let them lay your lawn, they do a crap job! In the end, following a bit of a debate, we got our money back for the lawn. Had to spend more money in the long run to get it done properly, but I'm now really pleased with it.
 

Darola

New Member
Also we used Brick kickers to do our snagging list. Well worth the money as they gave us peace of mind that, other than minor points, the building was sound. Okay there was 140+ minor points but I think at least half of these were decorating related. The biggest issue we had was that they put the wrong tiles in both of our ensuites! Which was a major headache because they had to basically rip them out and start again - this was a sorry tale because whilst they are good at building from new, they were crap at putting the ensuites back together again. We probably had more issues with the two ensuites than we had with the whole of the rest of the house.

Brick kickers also gave us the confidence to challenge, because they basically told us what we should and shouldn't accept. This really helped when we were talking to Bloor during the snagging works.

At the end of the day houses are handbuilt in the middle of a field, not engineered in a factory. This is no defence for poor work but it's just a reality check, there will be issues but you should be confident that those issues will get resolved. If you like the house design and you like the location then that is 95% of what matters, because ultimately with that you will be happy.
 

NewHomeExpert

Well-Known Member
It's always a good idea to have a new home independently snagged and inspected.
It is important that the inspector looks at more than just obvious minor decorating snags though!

Just because a new home is built in a field, doesn't mean it cannot be well built and with care, with quality materials and high specifications.
Most plc housebuilders choose to rush, ignore defective work and wait for buyers (their customers) to complain (after they have their money!)
 

Darola

New Member
I said all they found was minor snags, I didn't say that was all they inspected.

"Well worth the money as they gave us peace of mind that, other than minor points, the building was sound."
 

NewHomeExpert

Well-Known Member
I said all they found was minor snags, I didn't say that was all they inspected.

"Well worth the money as they gave us peace of mind that, other than minor points, the building was sound."

"Peace of mind the building was sound" meaning as far as the inspector could see when the home was finished and most things are covered up.
Did he inspect the foundations prior to concreting?
Did he air test the drainage?
Did he inspect the floor joist had been installed to the manufacturer's instructions?
Did he even go up in the loft?

Some even "miss" air bricks fitted upside down, and dpc's too low!
But an independent snagging inspection is money well-spent and better than trusting dodgy housebuilders!
 
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