‘We were disappointed to discover what we’d bought’

House Beautiful online 04.03.2008

Catriona Bright, 35, and her husband Tony, 37, bought a three-bedroom townhouse in a development in Bolton almost four years ago. They have two sons, William, six, and James, four.

The Bright family stand in front of their new build home ‘We paid £212,000 for the house and, as I was seven months pregnant with James, we wanted to get settled before he was born. We did it, but didn't expect the myriad of problems we faced.

‘When you see a show home you believe that the high quality you see is what you'll get. But what we got was the lowest spec - thin magnolia paint, plastic sockets instead of chrome, and cheap laminate flooring. The kitchen was marketed as "executive" but turned out to be made of MDF. The garden was just a mudslide.

‘Once we were in, the builders told us they'd come back and sort out the snags, but although we were constantly chasing them, they never turned up. There were no showstopping problems, just lots of nagging little things.

‘The extractor fan didn't work and when you switched on one socket it delivered electricity to a totally different room.

‘The most frustrating part was that we asked to be able to go round the house and do a snagging list in advance but the builder said, "Why do you want to do that? There won't be anything wrong."

‘Although the faults were minor, you don't expect to have them at all in a house that's supposed to have been built and finished by professionals. There are still some things that have never been fixed, but in the end you just give up and get on with your life.'

As a direct result of their experiences, Catriona and Tony founded New Build Inspections, which specialises in snagging inspections of newly-built houses. For more info, go to www.newbuildinspections.com.

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