Discovering construction defects will be frustrating if you are the proud owner of a newly built property. You paid good money to have professionals do the work and expected the end product to reflect that.
Problems can occur at any stage in the construction process, so while your first response might be to shout at the builder for shoddy work, it might not be entirely their fault. To determine whose fault it is, you need to understand two things:
- When the problem occurred
- Who was in charge of that area at that point
The design process
The construction company may claim they followed the architect’s plans to the letter and that the problem is due to a design fault. If you dealt with the architect alone and only called in the construction company to implement those plans, knowing who to claim against will be more complex. That is not to say the constructor can just claim ignorance if they barreled ahead with something they should have noticed was wrong.
The material selection and purchase
If you dealt directly with the supplier, the constructor might claim faulty materials are nothing to do with them. If they bought them, they should hopefully make the issue your right and take the issue up with the supplier on your behalf.
The construction process
Again it will be easier if one company was in charge of the whole project. While they may have hired people for specific tasks, it probably falls on them to make it right and chase the contractor for compensation. If you insisted on hiring your favorite carpenter and paid them directly, the boundary over who is responsible is less clear.
Consider legal help to determine responsibility and solve construction defect issues more effectively.