Buying a new-build home is meant to take the stress out of the process, as you know it won’t need any repairs immediately.

That’s the theory – but one family say they were confronted with 108 separate problems after moving into their new-build property.

Louise and Philip Upton paid £283,995 for the house in Stafford, West Midlands, back in February.

In the nine months they’ve lived there, they have noticed fault after fault.

The issues range from minor things like cracked tiles to problems that breach building regulations and cause safety issues such as not sealing around the flue.

Fed up with constantly finding new issues, they organised a £500 snagging survey where professionals assess the house for problems.

It concluded there were 108 faults with the property.

The couple, who have four children aged between two and nine, are now trying to deal with the issues from their Bellway Home in Mallard Walk.

Louise, 30, said: ‘You fall in love with a place and don’t notice some of these things until you’ve moved in. We would never have expected this buying a new build. It’s been an absolute nightmare and you start regretting how much you’ve done and spent on it.

‘It’s something that was meant to be an exciting time, but it’s not. The stress that we’ve gone through has been awful. It’s been one of the worse times of my life and it’s reflected on our kids.’

They now want the government to make snagging surveys compulsory before buying a house.

In addiction, they believe money should be held back after completion as an incentive for builders to ‘get it right’ in the first place.

Philip, 39, added: ‘The worrying thing is the builders are under so much pressure to finish that they’re rushed, and problems stem from that.

‘Because it’s new, people expect no issues.

‘We were excited to get in and, don’t get me wrong, we still like the house now, but we are regretting it. If we had the money, we would have moved out already.

‘The issues have caused both me and my family a great cause of inconvenience and stress, as well as time off work to sort it.’

‘The mistake we made is not having it snagged before we moved in. I regret that. It should be a legal requirement.

‘We’re relying on the guarantee to get this stuff sorted, but it’s stuff that shouldn’t have happened.’

Bellway has been approached for a comment.

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