Kirstie Allsopp told today's buyers to avoid wasting their money on 'shoddy' properties. The Location, Location, Location presenter claimed some houses built from the late 1980s are poor quality, more prone to flooding and built for the short term.

Housing associations responsible for more than 175,000 homes are facing allegations of serial neglect of their residents and properties, focused on an array of new-build developments in London that have received more than £60m in public money.

Harron Homes promises that its newly built houses will “surpass all expectations”. The £324,995 home that James Uttley bought was certainly beyond his imaginings.

When Helen Batt went to view her recently purchased £389,995 Bovis-built home in Maidstone, Kent, for the first time before Christmas, she was expecting to see a spanking new four-bedroom house. Instead, the property in the Orchard Fields development was barely finished and littered with rubbish – two days before the scheduled completion date of 20 December. “It was a complete shock,” says Batt, a 32-year-old partner in law firm Buss Murton.

A group of home owners who believe they were “mis-sold” their properties are preparing to sue the builders and the solicitors they used when they bought their homes.

Nearly 300 families a week are being forced to move into shoddy newly-built homes that have not been finished as builders cut corners to meet targets, it has been claimed.

Families from across the country have revealed their horror stories to MailOnline after buying newly built homes that have not been finished. Homeowners, some of them first-time buyers, have told of picking up the keys to find leaks, badly fitted doors, mould and gaps in the guttering.

Customers have told of how when they picked up the keys to their dream homes they discovered a string of issues and work unfinished – leading a housebuilder to apologise. A young couple finding their home was missing its oven and a mum having to make an 18-mile trip to do her washing are among a litany of complaints laid at Bovis Homes’s door.

Shoddy workmanship, terrible customer service and homelessness are just some of the issues homeowners on a Grantham housing development say they are facing. And they have become so angry with developer Persimmon Homes, they have united and are standing together to demand action.

DISTRAUGHT residents of a Woodley housing development have been moved out of their homes as their two year battle to fix hundreds of issues rumbles on. Tracey and Jason Bass and their daughter Emily are three of the 11 Loddon Park home owners who have been placed in the Winnersh Holiday Inn by developers Taylor Wimpey over the last several weeks.