Thanks everyone for the feedback! It's a new home that we've purchased from a builder.  When we saw the pool of water on our framewalk, the foreman who was giving us the tour said he didn't know what it was and he'd find out, but of course never got back to us.  Then "coincidentally" the lady who took us through the pre-delivery walk a few months later told us to expect water pooling in the basement and this will go away after the 1st few years -oh and a dehumidier would help with that, lol!  My husband who is a tradesman looked at her like incredulously  - I'm no expert however I do know how a dehumidifer works and I'm pretty sure that it doesn't fix the problem of water pooling!  Of course, the document they give us talks about condensation, seeping, damp basement etc., which we understand, but under what circumstances is pooling considered normal?  And reading your posts just proves our point, so thank you!  Also, we're on a forum with other homeowners from our new community and I posed the same queries, and no one else has been told to expect this or that this is a normal occurence.  So is it a coincidence that we were told this on our visit after we inquired as to why there was a pool of water in the middle of our basement?  I'm gonna go with someone got coached to tell us this is normal.

As for the floor register - basically if you're looking in to the bathroom, instead of it being placed to the left where the door sits and against the wall, they've placed it to the left of the vanity (on our right), not against any wall.  It is essentially in line with the door knob on the side where the door opens - and you will step on it everytime you enter the room.  Her explanation to us was that you don't actually have to step on it as we have an ensuite door as well - that we PAID to have installed!  So if we didn't pay to have that installed, we would have to step on it, and who wants to walk through a bedroom to get to the bathroom, it's insane!  I was so peeved at this point and said to her if a vent was placed in the middle of the living room, you wouldn't have to technically step on it but would you consider that acceptable?  Of course not!  It has to be a safety hazard and I wouldn't have bought the house with that there, and I fear that when we do go to sell, it could be a negative for a potential homebuyer.  It's been a very trying experience so far, we move in tomorrow and will be taking to the foreman again at that point for the final walkthrough.  I'll update this post with the result of that conversation but if anyone else has something to add that'll give me more ammo for my conversation, I'll take it! :)

I've just received a call from our municipality about both issues - unfortunately the building code doesn't have anything regarding the floor registry - they said it 'should' be under the floor and they've never heard of it being under a doorway, however it's not against code that it is. Which basically means that if they decide not to move it, we have to pay for that and then sue them for the $$$.  Grrrrreat.  As for the water pooling, the inspector is going out to see about this issue and talk to our builder as that isn't a normal occurence in new homes, so we'll see.

lol Paul!  Yes and thanks for the frank advice.  The floor vent has been fixed already, they moved it and I just got confirmation of that so that's solved.  As for the water pooling, I've contacted the local municipality who is going out there over the next few days to examine what this is about.

As for holding back $$$, it's not that simple.  You buy a new house and you sign your life away - basically if everything is to code when built, you have to pay.  My question is simply whether there will be water-pooling and what exactly they're going to do about that, which is why I've involved the municipality.  The floor vent can technically be in the middle of a room apparently - it shouldn't be, they should place it against the wall obviously but they don't have to by law - crazy but true!  This whole experience has been eye-opening for sure, and I've received great advice from this forum so thank you all for your comments and I will definitely update on this water-pooling business.

Kelly