Snagging List

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Esmeralda
Posts: 10
Joined: 29 Feb 2008 13:42

Snagging List

Post by Esmeralda »

Hi

How long does a contractor have to fix a snagging list before you can give up in exasperation and get in your own builders to complete the job !!

I have withheld an amount of money which he is chasing me for but honestly, I'm not happy with the work - there is still outstanding stuff and a lot of the fittings are just cheap cr*p :x

We have been in the house now for 2 years and don't feel we should pay him as the standard wasn't great. There is nothing in our contract about this at all.

Thanks
E
Nigel Howarth
Site Admin
Posts: 2905
Joined: 24 Oct 2007 14:38
Location: Erimi, Limassol, Cyprus
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Re: Snagging List

Post by Nigel Howarth »

Hi Esmeralda

Your lawyer should have included a clause in your contract about snagging - but obviously from what you say he didn't. Such a clause would have allowed you to hold back an amount of money until any snagging had been had been completed. (So your first task is to strangle your lawyer)

Although it may not have been specified in your contract of sale, I understand that under Cyprus common law you should have a one-year guarantee to cover 'routine defects'. This includes non structural faults that appear within the first year of you taking delivery - flaking paint, loose fittings - that sort of thing.

You have a lifetime guarantee against 'structural defects', but it's up to you to prove poor workmanship, materials, negligence, etc. on the part of the builder. (Structural faults/defects appear on the reinforced concrete skeleton of a building on which the whole weight of the structure rests. For example, subsidence of the foundations, is an obvious structural defect.)

As you've been in the house for 2 years, it could prove difficult to get your contractor to do anything. The problem is that it's your word against his - and although you could take him to court, it would be a long and possibly expensive excercise with no guarantee of success. But if you wrote to him during the first year about the problems, you will have a better chance - and an even better chance if you'd copied the letter to your lawyer. It might be worth asking your lawyer to send him a letter to see if that prompts your contractor into action.

As for the quality of the fittings - I've seen some of them and I know what you mean! Again, this all goes back to your original contract and the building specifications attached.

Cheers,
Nigel Howarth
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