Hi,
I recently bought a terraced house and was having a look at a similar unit in the estate to determine any alterations I'd like done to mine before moving in. Everything seemed fine except for one anomaly with the interior walls. All the interior walls adjacent to the front and back exterior facing walls had 2 tiers of plastering. The first plaster layer came in a few feet into the house then there was a 1-2 cm lip inwards followed by the second layer.
Anyway, the builder informed me that this was due to some HomeBond regulation requiring exterior walls to have thermal insulation and that they had placed extra insulation a few feet into the interior walls out of the goodness of their hearts!!
Now, this seems very strange to me as I'm used to having straight walls in any house I've ever lived, except of course where a chimney stack is pertruding etc. So the long and short of it is, I told the guy that I wanted some straight, flat plastered walls. He said that I'd have to fork out the extra money for the plaster board etc. I wasn't too happy about this as I would consider this a basic requirement of any new home and on the plans supplied with my contract I don't see any lips in the walls.
Does anyone know where I'd stand from a legal viewpoint on this? Is this a normal building technique? It's a small amount of money in question but, on principle I don't feel I should have to pay extra just because the builder's too cheap to finish the job properly.