Moving House

What a traumatic experience that is especially when you have to chase after the builders to finish on time.

Because i can no longer climb stairs.

We bought a new apartment 4 months ago while it was still under construction but the builder assured us that it would be ready the first week in may roflmao so i thought if i work with the first week in June we should be OK.

well for the first month after we signed the papers they did nothing and the time to pay the lawyers acting for the seller was upon us, i contacted them and said i am not going to pay any more money until i see some work going on, within 1 hour i had the builder on the telephone pleading but i stuck fast and surprisingly the very next day the plasterers were busy.

now i had sold our house and the new owners agreed to wait until the 10th of June to move in, its now the 6th and we still have no bathroom and central heating so i am going out there again today with a big stick.

i do have some protection under Belgian law if the building work is not finished to my satisfaction 4 months after signing there are penalties that they must pay me for each day that they go over, the 4 months are up next Monday so watch this space.

I did not know i could get so stressed just from moving homes after all in the military we did it 6 or 7 times but it would seem the system does not work with civilians.

http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/3995/movinghouse12d0c93le7.jpg

 

Sorry for all your problems Bill, moving alone is bad enough but add a contractor and your stress factor triples. Hopefully with penalties hanging over them it will be a motivation.
Keeping fingers crossed for you and yours. :wave

 

I was in the building trade(painting) for 18 years and one thing I learned, no matter where you are, you have to stay on them, the squeeky wheel gets the grease. You said it was an apartment, see if you can meet other tenents and team up, there is power in numbers.
Here is a little insight, the builder pays subcontractors(tradesmen) i.e., plasterers, painters, cabinets, tilers, etc, if the subs have a better paying job available, they will devote the manpower there, and leave the lesser paying jobs hanging. So, it my be a case of your builder being cheap to make an extra buck. We had a case here where a builder would put off paying my boss for a month or two, my boss got fed up and pulled us in the middle of the job, needless to say that home's completion date was not met.
Good luck to you and stay on them!

 

Love your Belgian law...made me smile to see you're getting some satisfaction! Hope things will go more smoothly for you in future and that you'll be happily settled in real soon.

Cheers

LS

 

Thanks LS, it's good to see you back on the forums

 

Keep us posted Bill Very stressful time you are going through I am hope all works out for you soon.

G