Allen Ansell and his wife claim that their 14-month-old, £75 000 Bellway home in St Mellons, Cardiff, was riddled with defects when they moved in. Bellway carried out remedial work on the property, but this has been condemned by a chartered surveyor as being of “an unacceptable standard of construction”.
The defects noticed by the couple included a poorly installed staircase, poor pointing to the building’s external walls and a hole in the building’s roofing felt.
Bellway agreed to carry out remedial repairs to the house but did not decant the couple to another property. After eight weeks, the couple claim that Bellway said the work was complete and offered them £1750 compensation.
However, Ansell commissioned two separate surveys which he said stated that elements of the remedial work carried out by Bellway would be considered defective if the couple were to attempt to sell the property.
Bellway Homes refused to speak to Building.
Ansell said: “Bellway have absolutely no pride in their workmanship. And we have had to live in the house while all this work was going on.” On a number of occasions while Bellway was carrying out remedial repairs, Ansell said he and his wife had to walk 200 yards to the scheme’s show house to use the bathroom because the builders had turned off the water without notice.
Bellway rectified a structural problem in the staircase by installing timber supports underneath it. However, Ansell said some of the supports had since fallen down.
“It’s a complete bodge job. They supplied us with a staircase that couldn’t be used unless it had extensive propping underneath it. You shouldn’t have to support a new staircase like that. It’s terrible,” he said.
Ansell added that Bellway had repaired the damaged roofing felt by pushing an additional piece of felt into the gap from inside the building’s loft, supporting it with two pieces of wood wedged between the roof rafters.
Bellway also carried out work to external brickwork, including extensive repointing. Ansell said Bellway used a different shade of mortar from that of the original and had altered the “new look” of the house.
“The house just looks completely knocked about because they couldn’t take enough pride in the job to ensure they used the same colour mortar. It’s ridiculous,” said Ansell.
Ansell said he had contacted the National House Building Council twice but it had refused to help.
A spokesperson for the NHBC said: “If Mr Ansell contacts us again, we will send a claims investigator to the property. Under our new resolution procedure, we can bring in another contractor to carry out the remedial work if the situation between the two parties has broken down.”
