After taking up the covering near the sink pipes, lo and behold, there’s been a small leak that must have been going on for ages and the area underneath is covered in mold and soaked through. As the building is made of wood, it’s quite worrying as wet wood must rot quicker. Not to mention the health hazards of breathing in mold spores all these while. No wonder I’ve been having headaches.

Anyway, contacted Laing and after chasing them a couple of times, we’ve finally managed to get someone to look at it. Not exactly sure what they’ve done apart from pull out a couple of pieces of wood and left them in our bathroom and declaring that it’s fixed. The mold’s still there. The leak? No idea, we haven’t used the ensuite for the past month now.

Looks like there’s more chasing up to do..

We resorted to not using the ensuite for the time being, leaving the window open and door closed to let the place dry out. Unfortunately weather has not been kind and it’s been freezing the past couple of days. Not to mention not very secure having the window left open.. it’s just an open invitation to any unsavoury characters (fingers crossed that there are none around). Going to need to chase Laing up again!

I’m just wondering, how in the world can I prevent mold from forming in the bathroom? Surely it can’t be that I have to leave windows open all the time? I’ve found condensation inside the windows of the room quite a bit. Although I’m assured that it’s normal, surely there’s something not quite right about the ventilation to have such a high content of moisture. And cooking smells linger on.. *sigh*..

Sure there were a few nicks here and there on the walls and leftover paint on tiles and doors, but that’s something we could live with. After moving in, you do get a visit from the site manager and we got to show them things we wanted fixed or corrected. That was after we’d chase them to come to do the visit though.. their excuse was that they have 7 WORKING days to contact us after completion to do the home visit which includes weekends and all the bank holidays over Christmas and New Year. Wasn’t the same position for us regarding completion, it was 14 CALENDAR days after they had served notice, so didn’t include weekends and bank holidays. Talk about double standards!

Nevertheless, they’ve got most things sorted, like gaps in the windows and leaking showers, but still have yet to finish up on missing mastic behind the toilet pipes and around the basin, and windows not closing properly. You do find out things like components not being fixed properly on the shower door, and various other bits and pieces the longer you’re there. But Laing are always friendly when they come visit. (they are coming again in 3 months, or was it just a phonecall?) Wish they didn’t leave the lights on and internal doors open after coming to finish up on the odd job though. After all, they did advise us that if internal doors weren’t closed, and there were to be a fire, we’d not be covered by insurance!

from the radiators to windows and even the dishwasher. Very helpful little tips thrown in like rubbing baby oil on the doors every so often to keep the moisture in. There was undoubtedly a lot to take in, but we were assured that we’d get a manual upon completion, which incidentally is very very soon.

The flat was in good condition, as one would expect with a new build property. I didn’t think it would be in a bad state, but it was pleasing to note that marks on the wall and gaps are assured to be filled and corrected before completion, as well as things like funny sounds from the fridge motor and uneven kitchen doors that were noted to be checked out. Undoubtedly told again not to waste money on snagging, but I am rather curious to see what professional snaggers would pick up on that we missed.

Anyway, Christmas is only a couple of days and we’ll be home owners soon, in hours literally I hear. Daunting prospect, but exciting nevertheless.

Finally we spoke to the site manager Mark Thompson, who stated that the Laing policy was not to allow a snagging inspection or an inspection by any other professional or contractor to be carried out prior to completion. From our experience with the sales people, it does not seem to be a very clear or well known policy! Certainly, this was the first we heard about it.

In other words, we are allowed to rely only on our own (lack of) knowledge and experience to satisfy ourselves that a satisfactory job has been done. Moreover, Mark said that he would tell us how to inspect the property. Sounds helpful, but there is an obvious conflict of interest in the developer advising you that the property is “an excellent property” and telling you how to look at it. We were told that because New Build Inspections weren’t the purchasers, whatever they had to say didn’t matter.

What?? You mean, what any expert is saying does not matter because they are not the purchaser? Why in the world do we get a surveyor in to have a look at a building before we purchase it? Sure, it looks fine to me, so whether the surveyor is of the opinion that the building is about to collapse does not matter! Is that what they are trying to say??!!

His rationale was that you pay an “extortionate” amount in fees for a
snagging report, and the inspector has to find as many faults as he can and “tear the place apart” in order to justify the fees you have paid. I really wonder that this is actually the service you want from a snagging inspection. Wouldn’t you be much happier if the report could just say, here is a list of minor defects, some we think a developer will remedy, others not, and we didn’t find any serious problems. At least there would be two sides to the story, instead of just the developer’s side.

More importantly, according to Mark, Laing’s (and any other developer for that matter) main concern is if a purchaser refused to complete on the basis of a list of minor defects, especially if it were a pretext for not completing to their timetable. Perhaps it’s worth remembering that they are holding a substantial deposit paid at exchange, and you may forfeit that deposit by refusing to complete.

So what happens if you go ahead and complete, and then you have the snagging done? It doesn’t take long to guess that the developer may argue that you had caused some defects since moving in. In any case, how urgent is it going to be to rectify defects now that the legal process is over? A developer may simply refuse to entertain a post-completion snagging report. Even where they are more receptive, when will defects be remedied? You begin to understand why there are snagging report companies in the first place!

All the time, Mark is trying to reassure us that the flat is “excellent” and that we’ll see at the home demo. At the same time he reminds us that he “doesn’t do perfect”, and that he will tell us if we are being unreasonable when we point out a defect. His idea of reasonable, and he says that this is in accordance with NHBC as well, is whether defects can be seen from the middle of the room or 2 metres. My question is, why should there be two different standards of snagging – one of the uninformed buyer, and another for the professional snagger? Are developers trying to pull the wool over our eyes? If it is NHBC standard, then professional snaggers should be snagging to that standard too, no?

I don’t care if there’s a small scratch on the surface of the skirting board. I’m more concerned with what else we may have missed that a professional snagger picks up on. Ill-fitting sinks, curved walls, eneven/ sloping doors. That sort of thing. But no, we’re not allowed to have any professional snagger come in on our behalf before completion. Laing has a policy of not allowing professional snagging. If they are as excellent as they say they are, what’s there to be scared of? They say they are reasonable, well, so am I!