Where to from here for us now

Hi Jeanie, I would be very interested to hear how this goes, and whether you ever get any money from the MBA. Many people seem to suggest you won’t, but it seems difficult (but not impossible) to believe that if they never, ever pay out in any circumstances people would keep buying the Guarantees. Triumph of hope over reality? I’ve asked before on this blog whether anyone ever got paid, but received no response. Perhaps MBA itself can enlighten us, or you can ask them in general terms how many claims for a total of how much they paid out in, say, the last 5 years. Surely it can’t be zero. But regarding my actual experience, I can say our MBA builder went into liquidation when our house was almost complete. Initially the Liquidators treated all the unfinished builds as ‘assets’, and tried to in effect to sell them on to a new MBA builder, so they could make any remaining profit by finishing the jobs. At first that looked good, because the new builders I spoke to said they would take on our job exactly as though they were the original builder. But I was told the Liquidators got greedy, and asked for too much for the transfers. Finally I was given permission by MBA to find my own builder. Because I wanted to use a non-MBA builder, the MBA agreed (based on photos) to maintain the Guarantee for the work done up to the Liquidation. Luckily for us the house really was fully closed in and very close to completion (just about inhabitable), so I could get insurance, and we had not overpaid the builder, so had our remaining funds left to finish off without being much out of pocket. But where it gets more complicated (and everything about this kind of situation can get very complicated), I had to scurry round and try to contact all the subbies with part finished work, to persuade them to finish off. Not easy if some if them haven’t been paid by the builder for the work done up to then. But necessary I felt, because how do you persuade an electrician or plumber etc to give you the Producer Statements etc you need to get the CCC, if they haven’t done 100% of the work? And I assume no one else can give you Statements for work they haven’t done. Long story short, make sure you know who all your subbies are, how to contact them, and keep on good terms with them. Because you may need their help if the builder falls over.

Hi Chris, thanks for your comments. Our situation is quite complex. We have been living in our home for 5 years and it has COC but our complaint was made with MBS before the builder completed the build. The builder had said all along he would fix the defects highlighted by Maynard Mark’s 18 months ago. We knew the builder was never going to remedy them. His membership with MBA was ” ceased ” 6 months ago . Now that the builder has decided to put the company into liquidation we are not sure whether MBA will come to the party and honour their guarantee?

Hi Jeannie, So I guess only the first paragraph of my last reply would apply to you. Hopefully the rest of it might be of some use to others reading this. But regarding your latest question, in my opinion the fact that the builder has recently gone into liquidation should be irrelevant to whether the Guarantee is valid, as long as it was taken out correctly, and paid for, before the build started. Surely one of the main points is to give you at least some cover (although possibly nothing like enough), in exactly this kind of situation. You’ve asked whether MBA will honour their Guarantee, but I assume that your first step was to ask MBA themselves. As I recall there was a lady there who was quite helpful, and would answer phone calls and emails. Anyway, my request to you and others reading this is, please let us know whether you ever get any money from MBA.