Reform one: Enforceable guarantee

House Beautiful online 04.03.2008

The first aim of our Built To Last campaign is to get a two-year customer care service guarantee for new homes to be first-class.

House building site Buying a house is a huge purchase, yet if you go for a new build, it's unlikely you'll set foot inside the house before exchanging contracts.

When you finalise the purchase, chances are there will still be lots of things that need to be finished. These defects are called ‘snagging', which sounds relatively minor. In comparison to building solid walls and putting on a water-tight roof, it probably is. But when you've paid for a house, you want the taps to work properly, all kitchen cabinets to fit and the garden to be a garden.

When you’ve paid for a house you want all the taps to work and the garden to be a gardenWhen they're constructing a house, builders work to strict regulations and are watched closely by building inspectors. The finishing touches are covered by a two-year warranty, governed by the National House-Building Council (NHBC), which means if builders don't make everything perfect within a reasonable time then the NHBC will step in and force them to do it. The reality is that by the time you move in, most builders have lost interest and are onto the next set of foundations. After a few months, new homeowners give up and sort out the problem themselves.

According to a report for the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), we need to see change, and particularly a shift in attitude towards the homebuyer.

One company doing that is Lovells. ‘People expect a house to "work", just like anything else they buy,' says Martin Brook, Customer Care Manager in the southern region. Lovells likens the purchasing process to a ‘customer journey' and aims to keep buyers involved at every stage, handing over a house that's virtually perfect. As part of this journey, tradesmen have to confirm a house is ready to work on, so defects are rectified early on. Finally, the sales team quality-checks the house before it's handed over to the customer. ‘We hope other house-builders will follow this initiative,' says Martin.

Lovells Marketing Manager Tracey Maile admits there are shortcomings in the industry: ‘It fails to deliver what customers want,' she says. ‘It goes well for 98 per cent of the way but the last two per cent disappoints. This has to change.' When House Beautiful Editor Julia Goodwin put these concerns to then Housing Minister Yvette Cooper, she replied:

‘This is an area the Government wants to look at more closely. Building regulations and an NHBC programme of warranties currently cover new homes. However, recently, the Callcutt Review, a Government-commissioned study, recommended that developers who don't meet the required standard should no longer be given contracts on public land.

‘But this doesn't help buyers who have already been sold poor-quality homes. We are waiting for the results of an Office of Fair Trading Customer satisfaction survey into
the house-building industry. We are keen to find out what House Beautiful readers recommend and would certainly look closely at any proposals you make as a result of your Built To Last campaign.'

To read more about the House Beautiful Built to Last campaign, click here...