TRICKS THE BULDERS PLAY ON YOU
Over the years we have become aware of tricks the builders play on you the purchaser. As they say forewarned is …….. We have listed some of the tricks below and would welcome in put from anyone who is aware of anything else that we have missed.
Trick No 1; The builder tells you the property is ready snagging, weeks before you are due to move in. Since most houses are rarely finished on time the chances are he is getting you to have the house snagged early so you give him a finishing list rather than a snag list. This is very helpful to the builder and you pay for it. Also if you snag too early the builder might turn around at a later stage and say a problem that you have discovered is not on the snag list and he will only do what is on the snag list. Ideally you should be having the snag list compiled 3 weeks before you are due to get the house.
Trick No 2: The builder phones you late on a Friday night or over a weekend to tell you the property is ready for snagging and it can only be done next Tuesday at 11. Where are you going to find some one to snag your house over a weekend and with such short notice?
Trick No 3: When the snag list is being done there may be several items on it that the builder cannot be bothered to fix so he fobs you off by telling you that this is the way it is supposed to be or that it is that way because of building regulations. An example of this was an item snaglists.ie discovered in a house. The hot water switch was located in a bedroom rather than in the hall or the airing cupboard. The builder told our client it was there because of building regulations. When the client told us this, we said we would be down in an hour with a copy of the building regulations and wanted to be shown where it said this in the regulations. We got a phone call back to say the builder would move the switch.
Trick No 4: Deliberately finish the house badly and do not complete the snag list in the hope that you will pull out of the sale. They can then sell the house to another party for a bigger profit than they would have got from you. You end up losing, as the house has gone up in value since you put the deposit down-and so has every other house too.