Showhouses on new developments are a delight to visit, with all the style and perfection that a good interior designer can bring to even the most ordinary three-bedroom semis. Buyers will find few flaws - not surprising since sales will depend on their impression of the showhouse. In most cases, the rest of the development is still at the construction stage. But does the house they eventually buy measure up to showhouse standards? Sadly, no, in many cases. The rush to get the development up and running means shortcuts will sometimes be taken and the standard of finish may not be as high as it should be.
Wise purchasers always get a snag list drawn up and repairs agreed (preferably in writing) before contracts are exchanged. Any good surveyor or architect will do the job for between £100 and £300 and this could save a great deal of hassle down the road when the buyer moves in. To be fair, most builders prefer that any defects are dealt with before the purchaser moves in and are pleased to co-operate with any reasonable requests.
Selling agent Gerry Leahy of Leahy Property Consultants says 90 per cent of builders are good about completing snag lists. He advises purchasers not to "go overboard and be pernickety", otherwise developers might dig their heels in and not play ball.
Snag lists can be an emotive issue, says Michael Goggins of the Irish Home Builders' Association. "Sometimes people can be unreasonable and builders complain that they are too fussy. Some buyers go through the house with a magnifying glass looking for hairline cracks," he says. There were, however, more than a few minor details on the snag list drawn up by Kevin Brennan's surveyor when he agreed to pay £112,000 for a three-bedroom semi-detached house at Rinawade View, Leixlip, from Kingscroft Developments earlier this year. The showhouse was beautiful, he says. His survey cost £100 and a total of 101 snags were listed.
These ranged from a slightly crooked wall in the main bedroom to a light socket hole in the kitchen ceiling. The tongue-and-groove floorboards, for which he paid an extra £250, were running in opposite directions. The boards were covered with scrape marks and couldn't be sanded and polished because of the unmatched joins, he says. On top of this, the immersion heater and cooker switch wiring were not included and this cost Mr Brennan an additional £105. After he moved in, he discovered that the upstairs water pressure was poor. He is still in dispute with the developers over some of these problems.
Mr Brennan says he found himself under pressure from the developer to sign the final documents before all the items on the list were agreed. "I had to take days off work to go down to Lucan, but their office there was never open. All I got when I rang was an answering machine and they never got back to me.
Dick Shortt, managing director of Kingscroft Developments says that according to his site staff, the owner of the house at Rinawade View "never contacted us at all". "We have left notes six times, but the owner did not respond." On the unmatching floorboards, Mr Shortt says "the joists run in different directions because of the bay window. You can't lay floorboards in the same direction otherwise the floor will fall through". The scraped boards must have been caused when sanding, he says. Kingscroft has a letter from Mr Brennan's solicitor accepting the way the floor was laid, says Mr Shortt.
On the absence of an immersion heater, he says since the water is heated by gas, none of the houses have electric water heaters installed.
As to the hole in the kitchen ceiling, Mr Shortt says that it was made by Mr Brennan's electrician and was rectified by Kingscroft. Of Mr Brennan's complaint that he "had no choice" but to use the electrical sub-contractors employed by Kingscroft, Mr Shortt says that using another contractor would have caused a strike. The water supply has sufficient feed to get water to the shower, says Mr Short, although "it may not be up to what he expected".
As there was no mention of the crooked wall in Kevin Brennan's snag list, the company were not able to comment on this.
There is a happy outcome, as we gave Kevin Brennan's mobile telephone number to the company and it is pleased to have made contact. "This is the first complaint we have had that we haven't been able to attend to promptly," says Mr Shortt.
A happier story comes from Elaine O'Regan in Cork, who bought a house on a McInerney scheme at Frankfield, Cork, last November. She employed an engineer to draw up a snag list at a cost of £300 for two visits. This was very worthwhile, she says. There were a number of small defects such as cracked tiles and missed paintwork - and one large problem she might have overlooked.
A steep incline at the edge of the driveway was considered unsafe by the engineer. McInerneys agreed to fill this in with topsoil and landscape the area. As a result, her garden has increased in size by one third. "The snag list definitely paid for itself," she says. The main problem for buyers is the short time available to submit a surveyor's report between the time the house is built and the sale is finalised. Elaine O'Regan was lucky. Her solicitor obtained a written agreement that the garden would be made safe before closing the sale. All the smaller snags on the list and others she found when she moved in were repaired. Purchasers of new houses have a HomeBond warranty to fall back on if they find major structural defects. For smaller things, they have a legal right to expect the house to be in good condition, says Michael Goggins.
George Williams bought a house from Cavan Developments, at Ash Park, Lucan, last year. While his house was being built, Mr Williams called to the site regularly and made himself known to the site foreman. Any flaws were noticed immediately and put right as the house progressed. "Don't waste time in the sales office, get your wellies on and walk around the site," he advises. If, some time after moving in, a buyer is still at loggerheads with the builder over defects, they can call in an independent arbitrator. This will usually be the president of either the Incorporated Law Society or the Construction Industry Federation.
A house is a big investment. Few people would buy a secondhand house without a survey - it seems advisable to do the same for a new one. "What looks like a minor problem like a small crack could turn out to be something major," says John Graby, of the Irish Institute of Architects.
