A FAMILY who paid £325,000 for a new home say developers left their house like a ‘death trap’ and then tried to fob them off with an £8,000 goodwill gesture.

Nasser and Zoe Malik moved into their five-bedroom house in the new Kier Homes development off Pole Lane in Darwen in July, two weeks after their original move date of June 24.

Since then, they’ve found countless defects with their dream home, including faulty wiring, loose paving stones, and damp, which Mr Malik says Kier bosses tried to compensate the family for with a cash offer.

Mr Malik said: “It’s been like a death trap. There are more than 100 issues ranging from uneven floors, random holes in walls, damp on every external wall, the floors are bubbling, the back doors aren’t closing properly, and a kitchen that was not even finished properly.

“There was a sink hole in the back garden covered by a paving slab which I fell into and damaged soft tissue in my ankle.

“Less than 24 hours after moving in my wife went to use the washing machine and was almost electrocuted because of a screw in the power cable, causing a power outage; the extractor fan above the cooker was sparking and making funny noises due to not being fitted properly and then when we took the cover off all the parts had just been stuffed into the fan bay and were left loose.

“There was even a loose manhole in the garden that they just covered with grass.

“It’s ridiculous; it’s like they’ve just rushed to get the job done and haven’t finished everything properly.”

Mr Malik said they picked a plot overlooking what developers are planning to turn into a small nature reserve.

He said: “There was nothing but mud there to begin with and we mentioned it to them and within 24 hours they’d put a fence all the way round our house. We can’t see anything now.

“We had new neighbours move in next door recently and we can’t even chat to them.

“What makes it worse is they’ve now put grass down where the mud was and we can’t even see it. We feel like we’re in a prison.”

Mrs Malik said: “Kier offered to build us a hot tub and a summer house as a way of saying sorry for the mistake, which we accepted.

“But then we went to them with all these other problems and they offered us £8,000 as a goodwill gesture.

“We’ve just had enough. We feel like they’ve been dragging their heels with everything and when you move into your dream home, you want it to be perfect, but it’s just been problem after problem after problem.

“We don’t care about the money and the good will gesture, we just want to make others aware of this and get answers from Kier.”

A spokesperson for Kier said: “We apologise for the issues that Mr and Mrs Malik have faced following the purchase of their new home.

“We have been in regular contact to rectify the issues raised, many of which have already been fixed, with a plan to finalise the remaining issues within the next two weeks.

“We strive to provide our customers with the best possible service and product to make the moving process a happy one but unfortunately on this occasion we have fallen short of our own high standards and have offered the Malik family a gesture of goodwill as a sign of our apologies.”