Residents of a prestigious Barratt-built housing estate say their dream homes were riddled with faults from the moment they picked up the keys.
One woman says she ended up trapped in the bathroom the week she moved in after the lock fell off the door at the development in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.
The prestigious Weavers Chase development by Barratt company David Wilson Homes claimed to offer home buyers ‘stunning’ homes built in stone to recreate village life on a picturesque hillside in the Golcar area of the city.
But many residents have complained about finding multiple faults from the moment they moved in and once they had parted with their cash they say the builders were slow to respond to their pleas to put the properties right.
Even after many of the internal glitches were fixed, residents are still complaining about water-logged gardens and the general unfinished state of the site.
Residents of a prestigious Barratt-built Weavers Chase housing estate (pictured) say their dream homes were riddled with faults from the moment they picked up the keys
One resident said the garage floor (pictured) of his house had to be digged up twice
The same resident also claimed that he had to have the drainage (pictured) in his back garden replaced
One man, who said he could not be named because he is involved with on-going legal action with Barratts, has shared pictures of the faults.
He said: ‘I have had Tarmac on the driveway replaced twice. I have had the garage dug up twice. I have had drainage in the back garden replaced.
‘I have turf replaced three times around the back and twice in front. I have had door frames replaced. The whole of the down stairs had to be re-screed and recemented.
‘There were fibres cropping up through the floor so the carpets had to be replaced. Every bit of single draining in the house had to be replaced, rerouted or realigned – every single square metre of piping under the house.
‘When you put a scree down to level the floor, the concrete has fibres in it to strengthen the work. Tens of thousands of fibres were poking through the carpet because they had to put down an inch more scree.
‘The drainage pipe under the garage was blocked for four years. The pipe did not have enough fall. They dug the garage up and re-laid the pipe but that did not work so they had to dig the garage up again.
‘They said they had spent £20,000 just solving that issue. I would never buy a new-build again. It is not what you expect to put your life savings into a house and then spend five years emailing the builders and being constantly fobbed off.
‘Things only started to move when I emailed the MD of the Barratts. They take billions of pounds a profit a year and cannot even fix the simple things.
Alexandra Downs who owns a house on the troubled Weavers Chase development claimed that her house had leaks and had to have her kitchen door replaced
A door frame in one of the homes in the Weavers Chase housing estate which appears unfinished and has begun to crumble away
One resident said that whilst the houses looked good they could only assume that they but were ‘built with the cheapest of materials and as quickly as possible.’
Many of the residents said they had not had any faults – or that there were faults but they had been fixed and they were happy with what had been done.
But many residents complained that faults had been there since day one, with many of these now having been fixed.
Emma Peacock, 30, said: ‘We have had a leak and poorly fitted things like the bath, bath panel and ceiling. There is a big gap around the pipes in the sink and they are all exposed. It is quite slack.
‘They had to dig up the top of our garden and pull all the paving up. It was something to do with the water works. Sometimes it is hard to get them to come out. And after two years they will not come out at all.’
Leigh Elliott, 46, who works in conveyancing, said: ‘Barratts have just sent me a bill and charged me £25 because I did not pay it on time over Christmas. I have had snagging issues.
‘Loads of people have had to put up with loads of drainage issues and snagging issues.’
Alexandra Downs, 40, said: ‘We had leaks and we still think they have got leaks but they cannot find any. The doors did not fit properly. We had to have the kitchen one replaced totally. We have weed from a culvert washing up constantly at the back of the house.
‘It is the first new-build I have had and it has not been great. The garden at the back was supposed to be flat. We bought it off plot. When we moved in we found it sloped off to one corner and that cost us £5,000 to put decking in to make it level. We complained about it as soon as we picked up the keys.
‘When we had it redone there were big pieces of metal in the earth where they had chucked away bits of scaffolding. It is better than the cold old house I lived in before – but that was built in the 1900s.’
Leigh Elliott, 46, who works in conveyancing, said he has had ‘snagging issues’ with his home in the Weavers Chase housing estate
One of the drains can be seen protruding from the ground in the back garden of a house on the Weavers Chase housing estate
Laura Brogan, 32, said: ‘We have quite a lot of snags. They did get sorted in the end. Our garden has a big raised platform on the back that is so high up you cannot get onto it.
‘It is something to do with the fencing but they did not even tell us about it and we lost a lot of garden. So it has not been the best in terms of service.’
Another pensioner, who did not want to be named, said: ‘We have had a lot of problems. Our house, to say it is a new build, is colder than our old house. You can feel drafts through the windows.
‘The back garden is so water logged you cannot walk on it when it has been raining. It is horrendous. Our heating is okay it is just such a cold house.
‘We have been there more than three years. You are wasting your time complaining to Barratts. They just pass the buck. When we moved in we had a right draft through the French windows.
‘They sent a double-glazing firm out to replace them but there was still a draft and when we complained to the glazing firm they said they sold them that cheap to Barratts they did not do a guarantee.
‘The kitchen has a concrete floor and is absolutely freezing.’
Another concern was that the back gardens were heavily waterlogged and remained so even after the internal faults were fixed.
Amelia Crowther, 31, one of the first to move in said: ‘My garden is just a bog. We have had cracks and doors which do not close right. There are big gaps under the doors’
Another neighbour, who would only give her name as Cherrie, added: ‘All the houses are the same.
‘It is like they were just thrown up. We have had all sorts of problems. We have had cracks everywhere.
‘They did not seal the bath properly so it leaked into the downstairs toilet. They did not put the right fans in or the right doors.
‘I have already had to have a new front door put in because I kept getting locked in.’
A spokesperson for Barratt Yorkshire West said: ‘We are sorry that some residents on this development experienced issues with their homes.
‘As the UK’s most recommended national housebuilder we always try to get things right first time, and if things go wrong, we have to put them right as quickly as possible.
‘On this site, all snagging issues have been completed and more than 90% of those living on the development said that they would recommend Barratt to their friends and family.’