Sadly cases like this are not unusual. It can take a long time for building defects to emerge by which time those accountable can wriggle out of liability. Building control and planning are a awful compared to other Northern European countries and the scheme that should indemnify the victims is riddled with conflicts of interest. The industry joke is that NHBC stands for Never Have Believed a Claim. We have an asset class - residential property - underwritten by the government and massively undertaxed (again relative to other Northern European countries). This causes a huge misallocation of capital and is almost certainly one of the reasons why UK productivity lags so badly compared to our peers. To add insult to injury the quality of this asset class is terrible. What tax there is, stamp duty, is a distortionary tax on labour mobility.