Drunken Bungle Whore

Maybe they should switch profession to Demolition Experts......

Snazy

Yup thats the one, they paid 800k for the house, in a bad state of repair. Seller wanted a mill for it.
They reckoned to make 800k from the work and resale, but sadly now thats not gonna happen.

Yup good news all round being back in, but then again I was getting to feel at home in the travelodge, eating out every day and night lol

Chrisgr31

So a firm of builders bought the house for £800k and then set about digging a hole under it? What for? Where they planning to extend it or what?

I can appreciate that the house fell into the hole, as houses have a funny habit of doing that! But what was the hole for in the first place?

Snazy

Worthy question mate

Originally they wanted to build a garden flat, bump the price of the place up a bit. Sadly due to working on sundays, and takin the pi55 starting early, working late, I made a complaint.
On the council coming round they noticed the digging, and wrote to him pointing out no planning permission.
The concent was given on the basis of NOT touching the basement, so he was not going to get permission for the flat.

They then apparently decided to make it into a pool, hence digging even deeper.

what would scooby do

Subtle change:

al4x1

of course the sceptics view on this is they couldn't get the permission they wanted so they made sure they could demolish it and build what they want

Snazy

lol I like it
Took me a while though lol

al4x1
Yup sounds about right to me mate. There are a lot of people that seem to think that too. Cant wait to see their application for planning when its all sorted out (some time next year)

Chrisgr31

I am not sure that they had an ulterior motive to enable demolotion of the whole. Suspect they were just stupid! After all if they wanted to demolish the house they would have done better to leave it empty for a while and get it wrecked by the local vandals, or to have set it on fire.

Instead of which they have dug a bloody great hole under it, which itself won't have been cheap. The house has now had emergency shoring up works, which will be very expensive, they have the cost of claims from the neighbours for hotel accomodation, damage to their homes etc.

They could claim on insurance but I wonder if they will be covered.

Snazy

Apparently there are some inspections and applications which should have been made, that by all accounts no one can find a record of.... Which will apparently leave his insurance not covering the bill.

One curious comment he did make.... "I wish you had just called me when you saw this, and not got the council and all the officials involved"

Hmmm Im sure he does, but public and my own safety was at the front of my mind.

David Lock

Insurance Company might consider this an undeclared "modification"

Chrisgr31

Well he should have applied for planning permission to do the works and then for Building Regs. Once the works were underway the Building Regs inspector from the Council would then be round to find out what he was up to, and make sure he was doing it correctly.

He wishes you called him first because then he would have filled the hole in himself, badly, still leaving his house and yours with the potential of collapsing. However it would have saved him a fortune in cash, and potentially from being sued.

My parents next door neighbour spent a Bank Holiday weekend digging a large hole in his garden for a swimming pool. Couple of months later it had all gone quiet so we asked what had happened and he said

"The Architect and Engineer couldn;t agree on what reinforcement I needed in the pool. What they did agree was that if I left the hole there whilst they argued the house would fall in it. Hence I filled in, and will start again when they agree!"

In your case you might want to do a search at the Land Registry to find out who actually owns the house. If it is a Ltd compnay it might be cheaper for the builder to put the company into liquidation and then seek to buy the house back, rather than paying everyone off!

David Lock

But wouldn't the value of the land be available to pay for costs so far if he did try to go bust?

Snazy

Its a fair chunk of land, and in fairness had be been able to clear the site and build new in the first place, it would have been far more profitable.

So in short, yup I would guess its gonna be worth enough to at least break even if the insurance dont pay out, which will cover our costs too lol

Off to do my morning inspection now, to see if anything else has fallen lol

richiewong

What a nightmare for you Snazy, Good Luck with this and I hope a big compensation claim comes in from the builders.

Dave1980

if they didnt have planning permission they are pretty screwed but that should go in your facvour.

David Lock

I'd have thought there was a good chance that H & S might be after them in the courts for endangering their workforce by reckless workmanship (I assume that must break some regulation??). If that had collapsed on you or their workmen it would have been really serious.

Have you got a link to the original SN thread (I can't find it) as there were some good pictures when they started the job IIRC? It's defies belief that someone can think that they can just dig out under a house in a big way without asking for problems. Do they think it is standing up courtesy of a big skyhook? Make sure you get loads of proper inspections and certificates when any remedial work is done on your pad. + Long Term Guarantees. dl

john_s

iTrader: (1)

They can probably round up a whole list of regulations that they've broken (construction is a minefield of red tape and regulations) that they could prosecute, but I'd imagine the basic ones they'd go for would be sections 2 and 3 of the Health and Safety At Work Act, which basically say that you've to ensure the safety of your employees at work (s. 2) and of people not employed by you (s. 3).

I would image that there's a good chance of a prosecution being sought under the CDM Regs too.

Dr Hu

I bet they'll knock it down & attempt to build a big **** off apartment block 3 or 4 storey high, with about 10 apts in it.

Seems to be whats happening in our small market town.

Builder buys a bungalow with a big garden or frontage, knocks it down builds apt block totally out of character with the rest of the bungalows in the road, but as it is 'dense urban housing' and 'fill in' it gets *** kissed all the way through planning and to hell with the street scene.

Cynical....who moi?

Snazy

Its a possibility indeed mate. The house is coming down, there is no question there. Planning have said previously that changes to the front of the house were out of the question etc. And have said since that an application for something that would not "fit in" would be hard to get thru. I can only hope eh

As for building codes, they ave broken just about everyone in the book. including a number of call outs to the fire brigade due to fires left burning over night. Putting gas cylinders on fires, out of control fires, unsafe working practises, insecure building site. Damage to the fire hydrent outside, damage to our fencing, severe damage to the footpath outside, working out of agreed hours, breaches of planning over and over, inc windows down our alley facing our property, the basement, an additional flat.... It goes on and on.

Chrisgr31

It would but I suspect the builders costs are going to be pretty high. He has spent £800k on the house itself, then an unknown amount digging a hole under it.

Now he has the costs of the emergency shore up operation on his own property which will be truly expensive as I bet the Council or similar organised it and will charge it back plus their admin. Then he has the costs of any legal action and fines against him. In the meantime he can't do anthing with the house until the various inspections/investigations are complete. He then also has to pay for all the investigations to neighbours properties and for any repair work they need.

Once that has happened there will be demolotion costs, and I suspect that as the building is now unstable they will be higher. Then there will be the delay whilst he applies for planning consent, for a replacement, probably via appeal as he has pissed everyone off so much.

Whilst all this happens he is probably paying interest on his £800k initial investment.

I wouldn't be surprised if this little shambles costs him between £100k and £200k.

Snazy

I can confirm that all emergency work except the concrete was arranged by the local authorites. A 4 van, 10 strong emergency team from Linbrooks, 15 men and 4 motors from MR Scaffolding working through the night. Borough engineers, and surveyors etc spending many hours on site.

Other officials spending a great deal of time on site too, for advice, and inspections. Not that he will pay for them, but 5 police motors and 12 hours of attendance.

The demolition will apparently be done by him, the hoarding was done by him.

The bills are only just starting, but he remains confident its all insured and they will pay up.

I have taken photos of the cracks in the floor down the alley and can confirm they ARE getting bigger, which suggests the house is still shifting. Looking at some of my pics, (some not uploaded) it appears there are still a few areas of concern remaining, which could cause a sudden shift. I will be speaking to the LA about this in the coming day, to arrange another inspection (shove it on his tab)

Snazy

Just got a text to say that the heavy rain has caused a mud slide, and taken some brick work with it.
Sadly its my sister who text me, so am unsure how bad it is, or if she is making things up. Not the most sensible person in the world.

If its shifting enough for brick work to fall it could be time to get out the house. Oh how I wish she had a brain cell !

Gonna get home from work ASAP and start checking and making the necessary calls.

Snazy

Innit.

Just got another text.

"Could have fallen, well there is a big hole round the back now. Lets see what the builder says when he gets here. Anyway, I got to go home now, mum is gonna keep an eye on it"

"Mum" is 70 years old, deaf, and never worries about anything in fear of causing a fuss.
"Builder" is the idiot that caused this in the first place. Of course he will see nothing wrong if he shows up!

Cheers sis!

David Lock

Well make sure to tell mum not to try and tidy up and get all the bricks back from the hole

Snazy

lol she is far too old to pick bricks up

Got home to find my sister was as usual making something up to make it an exciting day.

Nothing too serious going on. Will take comparison pictures again in the morning and see what I think.

Its a relief I have to say But the rain aint over yet.

daddyscoob

bet you it will not cost him more than 8 - 10k to demolish that place. Build what he wants - apartments - massive return. I reckon all is going to plan for him so far.
Keep us posted over the next few months.

Bear in mind he'll sell lots of fixtures and fittings to the reclamation guys before he knocks down !!!!

Snazy

Takes it down, even.
Its built of the good old stocks, which currently sell for 75p a hit. Most of his labourers only have to removed say 100 bricks in a day to cover his labour costs lol.

Fittings and fixtures, top 2 floors are indeed kitted out, which will all go into another project, saving money again.

Its the "once its flat" that startst to cost. Make the land safe, make it secure to prevent any dumping (which we all know IS gonna happen)
Repairing the pavement outside... and so on.

I will indeed keep this thread up to date if thats ok More for the advice than anything else.
Got some pics to show soon of the alleyway, just to get some opinions on the movement etc.

Cheers for everything people

Diesel

Hope you get some compensation mate. What a nightmare!

Puts the iissue of some noisy aircon units installed next to me in perspective!

Good luck

D

Snazy

Trust me I will be definatly asking for some!
Given the fact that shortly after my last post, I went to the car, reversed out of the drive, only to find the dividing fence has collapsed across my drive. Under the weight of the mud stacked against it.

Another thing to add to the list.

Iwan

Lol just when you thought it couldn't get worse!

I reckon this could turn out to be one of those legendary threads.