It’s all fun here at Bobble Towers – I have subsidence. Well, not me personally, *eyes bottom*, but our building. Prepare for a rant…
We bought our flat in October, our first flat, the object of much London dreaming. Finally, we can afford a flat! Bubb worked his socks off to get a mortgage on his own as I am a lowly student with no income, but we did it. Nearly in Zone 1, by the Jubilee line, perfect. We have big plans, totally rip out the crummy 60′s interior and do £20K of work (that’s how we could afford to buy so centrally; it’s a fixer upper). Now it’s all on hold. Good job really the builders have been absolutely arse in not giving us quotes within, oh, two months of asking them.
We got a letter from Southwark Council this week – who are in my bad books for losing three times now a ‘we’ve moved in’ form containing a certificate from my college with my student status so we can register to pay council tax – THREE ‘effing times I tell you. I just want to pay my council tax and not get taken to court – informing us that ‘major works’ will be taking place this year including “internal works” to our flat and the flat next door to deal with subsidence of the car park and paths outside.
This work involves injecting foamy stuff (see I’m technical) into the ground under our building to fill a void that has developed. To get any detail or dates or what they actually need to do in our flat we must go to one of their offices, miles away from where we live that is only open 10.00-16.00 on weekdays. Bubb took a morning off work on Wednesday to get the low down…
It turns out they may not have to come into our flat, they are 97% sure they won’t but we won’t know for another two months(!) for sure. The actual work will take place between June and September for a period of six-ish weeks. If they do need to come into our flat we actually have to move home, that’s right EVERYTHING, into temporary accommodation.
So, we are in limbo. Do we do any renovations, or start anything, on the off-chance the council need to drill into the foundations through our newly laid floor and underfloor heating? Everything hinges on what they need to do. To say I am pissed off is mild. I am fed up with not being able to start… I want to have a kitchen that actually works and has cupboards (I have none), I want a bathroom that works and has a bath (I have none).
I thought owning your own home was supposed to make you happy. No more crappy, swindling landlords. Now, I just have crappy, inefficient freeholders who lose every bit of paper we send them and have poor underpaid call-centre workers answer their phones.
The final thing – that really irks me – is if this work has been “in-train” for two years why the hell didn’t it show up on our expensive survey? Who hid what from whom?
In other news college started again this week and I have my own body weight in reading. I am already starting to panic about the workload, it’s insane.
I need a gin.
January 21st, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Oh dear, sorry to hear your problems.
I think you need to be having words with your solicitor or whoever did your conveyancing. That really should have shown up in local authority searches. Demand answers and, if ncessary, look into going to the Law Society to complain about them. First off, if they hadn’t performed the search properly, you can sue for the fees back. Secondly, you may also be able to claim money to cover the cost of moving out while the work’s performed, as well as compensation for the inconvenience caused. If you want to really go for it, you could even sue for the difference between what you paid for the flat and what the value would have been if the work had been factored in.
January 23rd, 2007 at 3:07 pm
What a bummer! I can sympathise, I have my own dose of dealing with the consequence of idiots to cope with.
My washing machine broke a couple of weeks ago; last Friday the chaps came to take the old one away and install a new one. It was then we discovered that the moron who fitted my kitchen (before I bought the house) seemed to think it was a good idea to build one side of the kitchen round the washing machine. Upshot is, it won’t come out without removing the worktop. The one with the sink in. Which therefore requires a load of plumbing. Bl**dy arse!
While I’m at it, I might as well have the worktop raised, and base units moved slightly so we don’t have all this aggro again next time.
God preserve us!
January 27th, 2007 at 12:03 am
yep. you DEFINITELY need to go back to your surveyor. We have similar things going on here. The council are preparing to ask for 10K to do up our block. They don’t when they are doing the work, or what they’re doing BUT at least we were forewarned in our survey.
A friend of mine got a full refund on their survey bcos of something like this. Follow that up dude! Good luck.
p.s buying a house is stress but it is worth it, or so I am told [we have heating now, but not a cooker that works!]