If you buy a new build home what protection do you have under the New Homes Ombudsman Service and consumer codes? We take a look.
The New Homes Ombudsman Service (NHOS) was set up in 2022 to provide a free and independent service to people who have bought a new build home and have concerns about the buying process, snagging or building defects that arise within the first two years from reserving the property or completing the purchase. After that you will need to go directly to your warranty provider.
To use the scheme you must have bought a home from a house builder that has an active account with the New Homes Ombudsman Service. As a member of the NHOS, the house builder will be expected to comply with the New Homes Quality Code. The NHOS says it can help you resolve issues with your new home which your builder has been unable or unwilling to fix.
Just to make things a bit more confusing, alongside the New Homes Quality Code there are a number of other codes. The two other main codes are:
Your developer may have signed up to one of these codes instead. But we will cover the differences and explain all below.
A snagging survey is there to spot problems with your new build home. We can connect you with an independent on-site snagging inspector today.
The New Homes Quality Code, published by the New Homes Quality Board, is a code of practice for the house building industry that aims to drive up the quality of new build homes and strengthen protections for customers.
The Code is designed to:
Not necessarily. They may be signed up to another code. Check with them.
Having said that, housebuilders that have signed up to the New Homes Quality Code include big name developers Persimmon, Barratt, Taylor Wimpey, Bellway and Redrow. If you own a new build house you can check the New Homes Quality Code’s register of active developers.
A snagging survey is there to spot problems with your new build home. These may be small and cosmetic, to significant and structural. A snagging survey is a visual survey to check the quality of workmanship against applicable standards. If you are complaining about the quality of your new build an independent snagging survey will make sure nothing is missed and add weight to your complaint. This is not to be confused with a pre-completion compliance (PCI) survey which the Code requires developers to offer to their buyers.
We can connect you with an independent on-site snagging inspector today
You can raise a complaint with the New Homes Ombudsman providing your complaint meets the following criteria:
– The developer must be a current registered developer with the New Homes Quality Board and signed up to the New Homes Quality Code. Find a list of qualifying NHQB members and the date they joined.
– You must have reserved your property on or after the date they became a registered developer.
– The complaint relates to an issue that occurred within 2 years from your reservation date or completion date, whichever is later.
– The complaint is about a breach of the New Homes Quality Code and you have already raised this with the developer.
– You are submitting your complaint less than 12 months from the Final Closure Letter (a letter from the developer advising that the complaint has been resolved), if you have received this.
– You’ve received a Final Closure Letter or waited at least 56 days after submitting your initial complaint to the developer.
You make a complaint to the New Homes Ombudsman online or you can send your complaint by post by filling in the complaints form and posting it to the New Homes Ombudsman Service, West Wing, First Floor, The Maylands Building, 200 Maylands Avenue, Hemel Hempstead, HP2 7TG.
In both cases you’ll need to give details including your name, address and details of the developer and the property you’re complaining about.
Next, the New Homes Ombudsman Service will review your complaint and, assuming it meets the criteria, they will pass it onto the developer for their response. The New Homes Ombudsman may speak to you and the developer to see if they can work out an early resolution.
The News Homes Ombudsman will then review the information and issue a Draft Decision; you and the developer can comment on the Draft Decision and these will be considered. The New Homes Ombudsman will then issue a Final Decision.
If your complaint is upheld in full or in part, the New Homes Ombudsman may issue one or more of the following decisions:
– To require an apology
– To require the issue to be put right
– To pay compensation to the customer – up to a limit of £75,000
– Any other action that the New Homes Ombudsman considers to be reasonable and appropriate in the circumstances
– In some cases, the New Homes Ombudsman may also make specific recommendations to the developer and these may then become general recommendations to the industry.
Since the launch of the Ombudsman scheme in Nov 2022, the New Homes Ombudsman receives on average 400 calls a month and have around 70 active cases they are investigating.
If you have any queries you can contact the New Homes Ombudsman Service on 0330 808 4286 (9.00am to 5pm Monday to Friday) or by emailing customer.services@nhos.org.uk
While nearly all companies that sell new build homes must sign up to a consumer code, there isn’t a single code. Apart from the New Homes Quality Code, the other main codes are:
As a homebuyer, you won’t get to choose which Code your developer has signed up to. And the lack of a single, mandatory code is confusing for home buyers too. Read on for more information on the Consumer Code for Home Builders and the Consumer Code for New Homes.
A snagging survey is there to spot problems with your new build home. We can connect you with an independent on-site snagging inspector today.
The Consumer Code for Home Builders, approved by the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, is designed to offer additional protection for home buyers from the moment you reserve your new-build home until two years after legal completion.
No. But it has around 10,000 builders that are members, ranging from small builders to PLCs. Before the New Homes Ombudsman was set up, nearly all the major housebuilders were members but many have since adopted the New Homes Quality Code. As at April 2024, only Berkeley and retirement developers McCarthy Stone have remained.
If your house builder is signed up to the Consumer Code for Home Builders and you have a complaint, you should start by following your builder’s complaints process. This should be available on their website or on request. This may involve raising the issue in the first instance with the customer services team and escalating it to more senior staff if necessary.
If you’ve followed the complaints process and you’re not happy with your builder’s response, your next step should be to contact your warranty provider. You will need to check your documents but NHBC’s Buildmark warranty is the most common. Your warranty provider will either deal with your complaint under the terms of the warranty or if your complaint relates to a potential breach of the Code requirements, you will be given an application form and adjudication scheme rules so that you can make a free claim via the Code’s Independent Dispute Resolution Scheme.
Disputes can be escalated to the Independent Dispute Resolution Service from 56 days after your complaint was first raised with your builder and no later than 12 months after your home builder’s final response.
If the complaint is upheld you may get a performance award (where the developer has to do something), a financial award or a combination of the two.
Some Code requirements and the maximum amount you can claim differ depending on when you reserved your home.
For example, for homes reserved before 31 December 2023, the maximum award available is £15,000 including VAT; this may include an award of up to £500 for inconvenience. But for homes reserved from 1 January 2024, the maximum award available is £50,000, including up to £2,000 for upset and inconvenience.
However, the number of complaints it handles remains small. In 2023, it considered 356 cases: 18% cases were found fully in favour of the homebuyer, 31% partly in favour of the home buyer, 31% in favour of the builder and 8% of cases were settled.
The most common areas of complaints were: complaint handling, an accessible after-sales service and accurate pre-purchase and advertising and sales material. There has been a reduction in the number of cases where the home builder has failed to reimburse a reservation fee. Falling to 7% of all disputes recorded in 2023, compared to 14% in 2020.
On average, homebuyers claimed £6833.69, yet the amount awarded to home buyers in 2023 was just £851.08. A quarter of homebuyers claim the maximum amount of compensation (£15,000) because if money is not claimed, then it can’t be awarded. Only 48% of the decisions were accepted by homebuyers, demonstrating that they weren’t satisified with the adjudicators decision.
Read more about how previous cases have been handled by reviewing the case studies produced by the adjudicators.
In order to access the Independent Dispute Resolution Service you’ll need to follow the above steps. But for general enquiries relating to the Consumer Code for Home Builders you can call 0345 608 9797 (Monday to Friday between 10am to 4pm) or fill in an online contact form.
A snagging survey is there to spot problems with your new build home. We can connect you with an independent on-site snagging inspector today.
The Consumer Code for New Homes, also approved by the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, is designed to ensure that best practice is followed by registered developers in respect of the marketing and selling of new homes. It also sets expected standards for after-sales customer care service.
Again, no. However, members include SMEs to PLCs, a full list of members is updated regularly. There are 9 warranty bodies that support its code.
In the first instance you should complain to your developer but if you can’t resolve the issue you can refer directly to the Code’s Independent Dispute Resolution Scheme or to the warranty body for mediation.
You can complain to the warranty body for mediation within six months of the developer’s final response or within six months of the date of making the original complaint, whichever is later.
If the dispute falls within the terms of the structural warranty (years 3-10), the warranty body will offer their own free mediation process.
But if it doesn’t fall within the terms, the warranty body can refer the dispute to the Consumer Code for New Homes Independent Dispute Resolution Scheme on behalf of the buyer.
If you’re not happy with the warranty bodies handling of the dispute through the mediation process, you can take it directly to the Financial Ombudsman.
Firstly, you need to contact the Consumer Code for New Homes to confirm your home and the area of complaint is covered by the code. You can contact them by phone on 0333 900 1966 or by email admin@ccnh.co.uk
Next, you need to complete an application form, you’ll find it on the CEDR website, along with your evidence. You can contact CEDR on 020 7536 6150 oy by emailing applications@cedr.com
The adjudicator will ask the developer to respond. At this stage they may resolve the complaint without formal adjudication; this is called early settlement.
If not, the developer must submit their response and the adjudicator will review your complaint and the developer’s response to decide whether or not you have a legitimate dispute and have suffered financial loss and/or emotional distress and/or inconvenience, and if so how much loss/emotional distress/inconvenience
If the complaint is upheld you may get a performance award (where the developer has to do something), a financial award or a combination of the two.
In terms of the maximum financial awards, for homes reserved before 31 December 2023, complaints covered by the Consumer Code for New Homes are subject to a maximum aggregate award of £50,000 and maximum awards for financial loss of 25% of the purchase price of the home. The maximum awards for emotional distress and / or claims for inconvenience is £1,000
While for homes reserved from 1 January 2024, the maximum award for upset and inconvenience is now £2,000.
If the developer fails to accept the Adjudicator’s award, CCNH may take legal action against the developer.
And where a developer (or their agent) is found to be in serious breach of the Consumer Code for New Homes, sanctions are available through the Code including the removal of the company from the Consumer Code for New Homes’ register and all Company Directors banned.
In 2023, the Consumer Code for New Homes saw 73 cases submitted and settled. Of these, 47 were closed: 32 in favour of buyers and 15 in favour of developers; 4 cases were settled and 22 were withdrawn.
The average financial award of cases that closed in favour of the buyer or were settled was £1049. During the same year, there were also 222 issues that developers were directed to resolve, an average of 4.3 for each buyer.
When it comes to fixing these issues, one action is typically a group of tasks relating to one room or one type of issue, such as an issue with several windows. Or replacing the whole kitchen.
If you’re unhappy with the outcome of the complaint you may consider:
Find out more in our guide New build problems and how to fix them.
Speak to specialist property dispute lawyers for a free no-obligation consultation of your case.
No. If you have bought a new home you cannot complain to the Property Ombudsman. Theyd eal with complaint between consumers and property agents.
It depends. If you own a shared ownership property or are a leaseholder with certain housing providers you can complain. Find out more from the Housing Ombudsman website here.
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