JimmyCorkhill
Registered User
- Messages
- 64
Hi,
We purchased a house in a new build estate off a well known builder/developer - one of the biggest in the country.
Upon receiving the keys, the garden had been recently seeded but you could see the topsoil, if it was even that, was not great as there were a number of large stones and even a piece of food wrapper protruding from the soil.
Eventually the grass germinated but it was bare in patches and poor growth in others. Spoke to the foreman a few times as they were on site for another number of months and he kept saying you need to give it the year and stick a fork into the lawn at regular intervals to help the grass grow.
Anyway a year had passed and over that time I improved the garden as best I could - aerating, adding fertiliser, adding sand to help the drainage, adding the same grass seed the builder used, getting advice from online gardening forums and even getting professional gardener in at one stage for advice.
In short, the lawn is crap - lots of moss, extremely damp soil, which floods in a particular patch when there is any bit of rain, have come across some large stones beneath the surface and it just looks crap.
The professional said you have poor draining, compacted soil and I would be best off ripping up the garden and starting again with proper drainage, sand, topsoil etc.
I spoke with a few neighbours and it turned out they complained about their lawn and the builder came back out and ripped it up and put down new soil, sand, addressed the drainage and put down rolls of turf.
So after the year I contacted the builder and they asked for pics which I shared and they sent someone from their aftercare team to inspect the garden who took a couple of pics. He said he would report back to management and they would be in touch.
Nearly two months later and despite numerous phone calls and emails, I am none the wiser and they now just ignore my emails.
Initially when I followed up they said someone would be out to discuss the next steps, which sounded to me like they were going to do something. Since then radio silence, I rang up yesterday and asked to speak to someone senior and they went off looking for someone and said they were all busy and one of them would ring me back and nobody did, surprise surprise.
What do I do next? The garden is small as it’s a new build estate, they are clearly aware the contractors did shoddy work in the estate gardens. It wouldn’t cost them much to come out and fix it.
Any suggestions? Could I go to the small claims court and even look for the maximum payout and use that to get a professional in to fix the lawn.
The size of the garden and the cost associated with a solicitor would make it not worth my while going to a solicitor.
Thanks
We purchased a house in a new build estate off a well known builder/developer - one of the biggest in the country.
Upon receiving the keys, the garden had been recently seeded but you could see the topsoil, if it was even that, was not great as there were a number of large stones and even a piece of food wrapper protruding from the soil.
Eventually the grass germinated but it was bare in patches and poor growth in others. Spoke to the foreman a few times as they were on site for another number of months and he kept saying you need to give it the year and stick a fork into the lawn at regular intervals to help the grass grow.
Anyway a year had passed and over that time I improved the garden as best I could - aerating, adding fertiliser, adding sand to help the drainage, adding the same grass seed the builder used, getting advice from online gardening forums and even getting professional gardener in at one stage for advice.
In short, the lawn is crap - lots of moss, extremely damp soil, which floods in a particular patch when there is any bit of rain, have come across some large stones beneath the surface and it just looks crap.
The professional said you have poor draining, compacted soil and I would be best off ripping up the garden and starting again with proper drainage, sand, topsoil etc.
I spoke with a few neighbours and it turned out they complained about their lawn and the builder came back out and ripped it up and put down new soil, sand, addressed the drainage and put down rolls of turf.
So after the year I contacted the builder and they asked for pics which I shared and they sent someone from their aftercare team to inspect the garden who took a couple of pics. He said he would report back to management and they would be in touch.
Nearly two months later and despite numerous phone calls and emails, I am none the wiser and they now just ignore my emails.
Initially when I followed up they said someone would be out to discuss the next steps, which sounded to me like they were going to do something. Since then radio silence, I rang up yesterday and asked to speak to someone senior and they went off looking for someone and said they were all busy and one of them would ring me back and nobody did, surprise surprise.
What do I do next? The garden is small as it’s a new build estate, they are clearly aware the contractors did shoddy work in the estate gardens. It wouldn’t cost them much to come out and fix it.
Any suggestions? Could I go to the small claims court and even look for the maximum payout and use that to get a professional in to fix the lawn.
The size of the garden and the cost associated with a solicitor would make it not worth my while going to a solicitor.
Thanks