Just though I'd share with you all my recent victory, in hopes it will encourage others to "just keep swimming"
My house was contructed by a volume builder, handover in late 2010, and I've had quite a number of problems since then - such that I think I am on a first names basis with everyone in the maintenance department lol. On this past weekend my front door handle broke; by that I mean that the metal attaching the screws that hold the handle on the door actually sheared off inside the mechanism. So I put a call into the local office of my builder simply asking if the handles came with any sort of warranty. I get palmed off with a "call the maintenance department", which I did, message left, no return call whatsoever.
So one of my good (or maybe bad) qualities is that I have a fair stubborn streak and at present cannot use the front door of my home at all which, frankly, makes me slightly more grumpy and stubborn than usual. Thus I put in a call to the mobile telephone of the maintenance supervisor for my area (who was silly enough to give me his business card a while ago ). He again tries to palm me off with a "I'm sure they only have a 12 month warranty". This prompts me to go and look on the manufacturer's website which mentions either a 5, 7 or 10 year warranty depending on the model.
Of course, the contract for my home mentions an entirely different brand to what is actually installed in my home so I put in another call to the local office of my builder to find out wtf the handle I have is called so I can deal with the manufacturer directly. By this stage I'm assuming the builder got sick of dealing with me because they came out and looked at the damaged handle, contacted the manufacturer and my new handle (which they will install) is being delivered next week