firsttimebuy
Registered User
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I have recently bought a new house with my sister and we were due to close just before Christmas. The week we were due to get the keys my sister went to house and found all the downstairs flooded. A pipe had burst in the kitchen and with the force of the water had burst a hole through the wall and there was water gushing out all over the place. The builders stopped the water and mopped the place up. We got in a plumber and structural engineer and they said that a water pressure regulator had not been fitted. The engineer advised that the skirtings, some of the presses in the kitchen and all the downstairs walls had to be replaced as the water had soaked up through the plasterboard. The foreman initially agreed to all this but during the week we got a call from the project manager on the site to say they would not be replacing the walls they did a test and they were "fine". Our engineer contacted the manufacturers of the walls who confirmed that they are basically ruined when that amount of water soaks into them you could see water damage had soaked about 3 foot high into the walls. My sister then caught them painting over the walls and advised our solicitor, they then wrote a letter back to our engineer to confirm they did a test the walls were fine and they would not replace them. We don't know what to do now. Is there any body or agency that we can complain these builders to? And also what should our solicitor be doing in this instance? Can we get out of the contract or could we force them to give us another house? Any advice greatly appreciated.