 Shared Ownership - who foots the bill on botched job?
Hi there!
Got another problem and figured I'd try you knowledgeable people before I go storming into the Signpost office!
I entered into a shared ownership agreement on my brand-new flat three years ago. About six months after I moved in we discovered a leak due to the washing machine having been improperly fitted (by the builders or whoever). The water warped my laminate flooring and so I called Signpost to tell them that they needed to come out and fix it.
They sent someone who replaced the laminate, but they did not touch the floor underneath the laminate, claiming that it didn't need doing. A year later I noticed my floorboards warping once more, but this time around was told that because 12 months had passed, it was no longer Signpost's problem and that I had to sort it myself.
I simply did not have the money to replace the flooring, and so it was left until last weekend. My grandmother and I went out to buy the replacement flooring (costing £100) and we employed a friend of the family (a builder) to come round to pull up the old floor and replace the new floor.
Now here comes the problem.
He pulled up the kitchen floor yesterday, and could not believe what he found. The flooring underneath is so badly damaged it is unreal. Where it is supposed to be air-tight he can fit his screwdriver down inbetween, it is so badly damaged my washing machine is actually sinking into the floor (and he believes that if it is not fixed the whole kitchen could collapse in a few years time) and the chipboard is mouldy. It is green and fuzzy, which means that it is releasing all sorts of spores and causing me to have asthma. I never thought about it until earlier, but I have had three asthma attacks in my adult life, all of which have occurred in the last two-three years. Coincidence? Also, it seems that the damage is not only limited to the kitchen where the leak happened, but because the chipboard was never replaced when it should have been, the damage is now all the way out into my hallway in one direction and my living room in the other direction.
Signpost have stated that it is still not their problem, and that they did the repair job when asked, but my question is this; can I possibly get them to pay for at least the cost of labour (I've already bought most of the materials) considering that if they'd not sent someone to do a botched job in the first place, this would never have happened? | 
