A FAMILY spent one of the hottest weekends of the year protesting outside the sales office of Bovis Homes, claiming their new house is just not up to scratch. Rennie and Sheralee Bottali told The Hunts Post that the house builder has spent SEVEN months pu

A FAMILY spent one of the hottest weekends of the year protesting outside the sales office of Bovis Homes, claiming their new house is just not up to scratch.

Rennie and Sheralee Bottali told The Hunts Post that the house builder has spent SEVEN months putting right faults with their £700,000 house in Great Cambourne - and there is still work to do.

The couple have set up a website listing all the faults they have found with their three-storey home since they moved in with their four daughters, aged 11, nine, six and five, in December.

The site has recorded 87,471 hits. The couple have also produced an eight-and-a-half metre long banner listing all the defects and hitches they say are wrong with the property.

They include:

nThe kitchen being refitted three times.

nA gas leak for a month.

nAll the doors refitted twice.

nRewiring for the alarm cables.

nRewriring for the electric switches

nA back door that has never locked.

nRefitting bedroom furniture.

nWhite goods replaced twice because of damage.

nGarden dug up twice because of drainage problems.

Both the Bottali family and Bovis agree that there are still matters outstanding including a blocked flue, a missing door between the main house and the annex and complete retiling of the ground floor.

Mr Bottali, 38, who runs a mobile phone company based in Cambridge and an international IT training company, and whose wife, Sheralee, 32, runs an interior design company, told The Hunts Post: "People came up to us to tell us their problems with Bovis Homes, we are not the only ones."

He added: "After seven months our home is still not completed. We have three businesses between us but we have been preoccupied with trying to sort out our home so we can live in it.

"Bovis said the damage to the floor was caused by our Maltese dog, until we sent them an e-mail from the manufacturer, Porcelenosa, saying this was impossible. We think it was caused by workmen who did not protect it from their boots or their ladders."

Mr Bottali said he had devised a compromise solution, suggesting that they family would leave the house for two weeks so the work could be done once, but the developer would not agree to it.

A spokesman for Bovis admitted that work was outstanding and that repairs had been going on for the past seven months. However, he said the company had made two offers of money to the family to pay for a holiday while the work was completed but both had been refused.

A statement said: "We take customer satisfaction very seriously and work hard at all levels to ensure our customers are happy in their new Bovis Homes.

"With this in mind, we have been working closely with Mr Bottali for the last seven months to deal with his concerns and remain committed to finding an appropriate solution. To this end we have offered Mr Bottali a financial package enabling him to take his family on holiday in order for us to carry out the agreed work without further disruption to them.

He has refused our offer.