20 Aug 2007 9:23 PM:
Hi
We have just found the La Canada Forum and it is good to see we are not alone with our frustrations. I think we met Carol and Ian in early April when we arrived to sign for our property (No 6), you had already been speaking to Vicky and Terry. We both were unhappy with the completion but our problems appear to have been much worse than theirs, we are glad they have resolved their problems and have now taken up residence.
When we inspected our property we found the following (it will sound familiar we promise):
- The drive was the wrong size and far too steep to drive up, if we did drive up there was considerable difficulty in getting out of the car (an Opel Astra).
- The gates would not open inward because of the steep incline to the drive and because they would only open out into the road it further restricted access to the drive, the drive although narrow was not completed either. We also noted that they had coloured grey block pavers red to fill in where they had modified the drives, some people are going to end up with multicoloured drives later in life and not by choice, look very carefully!
- The porch was narrower than the plans depicted.
- The skylight plastic holding down screws were all stripped and therefore the skylights were loose.
- The floor in the bathroom was chipped although generally inside was pretty good.
- There was patching done to the front door surround which was to a very poor standard
- The railings on the front wall were loose
When we discussed this with the builers (Quara) they were not helpful at all and after a very stressful few days we decided to refuse the property and firmly believed they were in breach of contract.. Our agent (Euro Anglosur) were on hand but we feel did little to help us and we felt totally isolated in our plight.. Eventually the builder asked us if we would like to select another property and we settled on No 108. The house was built and the kitchen and bedrooms complete, the only thing outstanding was the bathroom suites. Gardens/driveway at this stage were rubbish sites. The builder was most insistent that we should be able to complete by September 2007 and although this was not ideal we agreed (this meant that from the initial viewing to completion would be three years!). This week we have heard from the agent that there is a delay and the property is not ready yet. Suprise suprise!!!
We definately would not buy off-plan again and are very wary of the builder and agents thus far but on the positive side we do think the area will be superb when complete (whenever that is) perhaps we can all pool together to add some weight to some of the other areas of concern?
Does anyone know of any other web forums for La Canada?
Hope to see you all in the near future in sunny Spain.
Colin & Ruth
Community thread:
addresses for b/bs and small hotels in fortuna
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