Our dream home of £ 725 000 has become a ‘NIGHTMARE’: Retired couple forced to demolish their new five-bed building after only FIVE YEARS due to its dull foundations
- A cracked five-bedroom house near Ely will be demolished just five years after it was built
- The £ 725,000 property was the dream retirement home for Madeline and Alastair Price, aged 70 and 69.
- However, the house will have to be rebuilt as it suffers from poor foundations and is ‘lifted’
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A couple will have to demolish their £ 725,000 dream retirement home in Cambridgeshire just five years after it was built.
The five-bedroom house owned by Madeline and Alastair Price, aged 70 and 69, is so shaky that they cannot physically open the front door.
The couple’s detached house, which they bought in 2018, was covered with meter-long cracks as swelling ground ‘lifts’ the house.
Insurers blamed poorly built foundations and ordered the house to be demolished and rebuilt as the damage was too severe to repair.
Madeline, a retired banker who became a gardener, said: ‘It’s really a nightmare.
“The cracks are just about everywhere. None of the floors or work surfaces are level.
“Doors will not close – I can not even open the front door because it is stuck.”
“The insurance company said they could not save it. It’s not just a building, it’s our house. ‘
A house in the town of Wicken (photo), near Ely, which was built only five years ago, is going to be demolished and rebuilt due to the insufficient foundations
The structural movement of the house has created major cracks across the property that are too severe to repair
Inside the couple’s garage, a large crack extending several meters can be seen. The cracks were caused by soil under the house swelling and moving the foundations of the house
Madeline said they could only put the house directly on the market after it was demolished and rebuilt
Located in the rural town of Wicken, near the historic cathedral city of Ely, the couple’s home has five bedrooms and three bathrooms.
Madeline showed how cracks interrupted her and husband Alastair’s home, which had underfloor heating, a wine cooler and a wood burner.
The couple’s double garage has a two-meter-long crack inside that is about half an inch wide, while the kitchen and living room are also affected.
Madeline said the problem was with the house’s foundations – about 1.5 to 2 meters deep – moving through the clay soil beneath it, expanding due to ground swing.
Grounding is associated with the swelling of clay soil that expands when wet.
The couple claims that builders should have taken this into account when they built the house, which came with a 10-year warranty under the Local Authority Building Control.
The couple say they can not use the front door because the house is now so shaky that it is physically locked
The cracks are also present on the inside of the house as well as on the outside
Clay piles are where the soil expands under the foundation usually due to an increase in moisture levels
Madeline said: ‘The soil is bone dry with evidence that small tree roots are still there. It lifts the house.
‘They should have known what the ground was like when they built the house.
‘We only noticed small cracks after a few years, but we moved it to normal new household goods.
It started in the hallway, on the stairs and in the back bedroom.
“A structural engineer visited and said it was clay heap, this is where the ground under the house expanded.”
Madeline and Alastair, also a retired banker, have to move out of the house they share with their golden retriever when the demolition notice is given.
They will receive compensation for renting a property for six months – but say they do not know if they will return their house or sell it once it has been rebuilt.
Madeline said: ‘They are going to tear everything down and do the foundations again.
‘It could be at least two years out of the house.
‘We wanted to live in the countryside, we thought it would be our home for a few years and then we would move to our final home.
“We do not know at the moment if we will return. We might just put it straight on the market when it’s rebuilt. ‘