How many 'snags' does your new home have?
Watchdog has received complaints about the number of defects that buyers are finding in new build properties. These defects are known in the industry as 'snags' and can be anything from a crack in the wall to a wobbly stair rail or a draughty window.
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Watchdog viewer Arun Soni moved into his brand new house in North London more than two years ago. Since then he says he's had hundreds of snags. These ranged from peeling paint on his front door to a leaking garage roof.
His builder has fixed most of the snags reported to them but one of Arun's outstanding issues still keeps Arun and his family awake at night - literally. His water pipes weren't all secured properly when the house was built so when they cool down at night they knock against the ceiling.
His builder has tried to fix the problem in several places but Arun is still having sleepless nights.
"It's been an absolute nightmare. It's caused sleep deprivation for the whole family," Arun told us.
Arun has involved the National House Building Council (NHBC) in some of his outstanding complaints as he's covered by their ten year warranty.
However, that warranty has a few snags of its own.
NHBC cover
For the first two years after moving in, the NHBC will ask your builder to sort out faults with the property. If they don't, the NHBC will take over but this may have been after wasted time waiting for the builder to do the work.
From years three to ten, the NHBC is only interested in the big problems that might affect the structure of your house.
The NHBC lists a number of items in new homes it won't consider repairing after the second year. These include; a leaking bath or shower; cracking in walls covered by the movement of different materials; problems with the absence of cavity wall insulation; defects with guttering or driveways; and damp caused by condensation.
An increasing number of buyers are now turning to specialist new home surveyors to inspect their properties before they move in. These surveyors are known in the industry as 'Snagging Inspectors'.
Steve Roberts, who runs New Build Inspections, says he sees problems in every new house he visits:
"We haven't done a single inspection where we've found nothing wrong. Typically we're finding 70 or 80 per house," Steve told us.
Complaints about faults in homes increasing
Two years ago, the NHBC received 63,000 complaints about faults in new houses but last year, during the recession, the number of complaints actually went up. This was despite 40 per cent fewer houses being built.
Steve Roberts thinks that builders might be cutting corners:
"There's an element of trying to get away with things," Steve told us.
Dominic Littlewood took Steve to look at four houses in Peterborough. They were built last year by Charles Church Homes which is part of the Persimmon Group, one of Britain's biggest builders.
In each house the owners have had the majority of snags fixed by Persimmon but months after moving in they're still waiting for the rest to be fixed.
In one house, Steve spotted dozens of snags. In another house Dominic saw radiators which had not been fitted correctly to the wall.
At the end of the day, Steve and Dominic compared notes and had counted almost 150 snags in the houses they saw.
Steve told Dom, "If you spent £25,000 on a car and there's a scratch on it, you'd have it straight back to the dealer. Spend ten times as much as that on a house and you have to put up with hundreds of things wrong with it."
Persimmon Homes response:
"We take our customer service and build quality seriously. All new homes will experience a settling in period and it is not unusual for snagging to occur after completion. We endeavour to deal with all items brought to our attention as quickly and thoroughly as possible.
"We are very sorry that some of our customers have not received the level of service they deserved and in these cases highlighted by Watchdog it is clear that the level of issues reported and subsequent delays in addressing them is totally unacceptable. We apologise unreservedly for this situation and for any inconvenience caused.
"We can confirm that in each of these cases the large majority of issues have either been resolved, or are well on the way to completion. We fully recognise that on these occasions our standards fell well below those expected.
"We have recently introduced strict time scales covering all our new homes for all warranty items (i.e. all defects appearing in the first two years of ownership) to be completed within 28 days of notification and are pleased to report that to date over 95 per cent of items are completed on time.
"We constantly review our procedures to ensure we achieve improvements in our customer service, as set out in our new and revised Customer Charter. We also regularly monitor and review our customers' satisfaction both through internal surveys and the many independent external surveys that are undertaken on behalf of the industry. The 2009 internal survey shows our increasingly high level of customer satisfaction with 91 per cent of our customers saying that they would recommend us as a housebuilder to a friend. The latest independent Customer Satisfaction Survey by the House Builders Federation also supports our findings and shows that we have improved service to our customers to achieve a four star rating. We remain committed to continuing our efforts and making further improvements.
"... If either Persimmon Homes or Charles Church purchasers have a query and want to get in touch, we can direct them to the specific websites - Persimmon Homes or Charles Church. Follow the 'contact us' tab, then choose the specific region and there is a customer care number/email address for them to use."
Watchdog statement
For the first two years of the Buildmark cover, NHBC requires the builder to put right any defect at no cost to the homeowner and in the vast majority of cases this works well and resolves problems effectively. However, if the homeowner is unsatisfied with the builders'response, NHBC will step in via our Resolution service to arbitrate and instruct the builder to fulfil their obligations.
There are currently approximately 1.6 million homes in the UK covered by NHBC's 10 year Buildmark policy; last year we held 7,000 Resolution investigations finding in favour of the homeowner in about 70% of cases.
We understand that Charles Church / Persimmon are now taking urgent steps to rectify the outstanding issues on the homes featured on Watchdog. NHBC has already offered its Resolution service to one of the homeowners, who has contacted us directly, and we will be happy to extend that offer to the other affected homeowners if they request.
In years three to 10, NHBC's Buildmark policy covers homeowners against major expense arising from damage to their home. This includes all structural elements of the home such as the floors, walls, foundations and windows. This part of the policy also covers certain nonstructural parts of the home such as staircases, roof-coverings, drainage and double glazing, which should not normally require maintenance in the first 10 years of the home's life.
More moans about new homes
Watchdog has received complaints about the number of defects that buyers are finding in new build properties. These defects are known in the industry as 'snags' and can be anything from a crack in the wall to a wobbly stair rail or a draughty window.
In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit BBC Webwise for full instructions. If you're reading via RSS, you'll need to visit the blog to access this content.
Watchdog viewer Arun Soni moved into his brand new house in North London more than two years ago. Since then he says he's had hundreds of snags. These ranged from peeling paint on his front door to a leaking garage roof.
His builder has fixed most of the snags reported to them but one of Arun's outstanding issues still keeps Arun and his family awake at night - literally. His water pipes weren't all secured properly when the house was built so when they cool down at night they knock against the ceiling.
His builder has tried to fix the problem in several places but Arun is still having sleepless nights.
"It's been an absolute nightmare. It's caused sleep deprivation for the whole family," Arun told us.
Arun has involved the National House Building Council (NHBC) in some of his outstanding complaints as he's covered by their ten year warranty.
However, that warranty has a few snags of its own.
NHBC cover
For the first two years after moving in, the NHBC will ask your builder to sort out faults with the property. If they don't, the NHBC will take over but this may have been after wasted time waiting for the builder to do the work.
From years three to ten, the NHBC is only interested in the big problems that might affect the structure of your house.
The NHBC lists a number of items in new homes it won't consider repairing after the second year. These include; a leaking bath or shower; cracking in walls covered by the movement of different materials; problems with the absence of cavity wall insulation; defects with guttering or driveways; and damp caused by condensation.
An increasing number of buyers are now turning to specialist new home surveyors to inspect their properties before they move in. These surveyors are known in the industry as 'Snagging Inspectors'.
Steve Roberts, who runs New Build Inspections, says he sees problems in every new house he visits:
"We haven't done a single inspection where we've found nothing wrong. Typically we're finding 70 or 80 per house," Steve told us.
Complaints about faults in homes increasing
Two years ago, the NHBC received 63,000 complaints about faults in new houses but last year, during the recession, the number of complaints actually went up. This was despite 40 per cent fewer houses being built.
Steve Roberts thinks that builders might be cutting corners:
"There's an element of trying to get away with things," Steve told us.
Dominic Littlewood took Steve to look at four houses in Peterborough. They were built last year by Charles Church Homes which is part of the Persimmon Group, one of Britain's biggest builders.
In each house the owners have had the majority of snags fixed by Persimmon but months after moving in they're still waiting for the rest to be fixed.
In one house, Steve spotted dozens of snags. In another house Dominic saw radiators which had not been fitted correctly to the wall.
At the end of the day, Steve and Dominic compared notes and had counted almost 150 snags in the houses they saw.
Steve told Dom, "If you spent £25,000 on a car and there's a scratch on it, you'd have it straight back to the dealer. Spend ten times as much as that on a house and you have to put up with hundreds of things wrong with it."
Persimmon Homes response:
"We take our customer service and build quality seriously. All new homes will experience a settling in period and it is not unusual for snagging to occur after completion. We endeavour to deal with all items brought to our attention as quickly and thoroughly as possible.
"We are very sorry that some of our customers have not received the level of service they deserved and in these cases highlighted by Watchdog it is clear that the level of issues reported and subsequent delays in addressing them is totally unacceptable. We apologise unreservedly for this situation and for any inconvenience caused.
"We can confirm that in each of these cases the large majority of issues have either been resolved, or are well on the way to completion. We fully recognise that on these occasions our standards fell well below those expected.
"We have recently introduced strict time scales covering all our new homes for all warranty items (i.e. all defects appearing in the first two years of ownership) to be completed within 28 days of notification and are pleased to report that to date over 95 per cent of items are completed on time.
"We constantly review our procedures to ensure we achieve improvements in our customer service, as set out in our new and revised Customer Charter. We also regularly monitor and review our customers' satisfaction both through internal surveys and the many independent external surveys that are undertaken on behalf of the industry. The 2009 internal survey shows our increasingly high level of customer satisfaction with 91 per cent of our customers saying that they would recommend us as a housebuilder to a friend. The latest independent Customer Satisfaction Survey by the House Builders Federation also supports our findings and shows that we have improved service to our customers to achieve a four star rating. We remain committed to continuing our efforts and making further improvements.
"... If either Persimmon Homes or Charles Church purchasers have a query and want to get in touch, we can direct them to the specific websites - Persimmon Homes or Charles Church. Follow the 'contact us' tab, then choose the specific region and there is a customer care number/email address for them to use."
Watchdog statement
For the first two years of the Buildmark cover, NHBC requires the builder to put right any defect at no cost to the homeowner and in the vast majority of cases this works well and resolves problems effectively. However, if the homeowner is unsatisfied with the builders'response, NHBC will step in via our Resolution service to arbitrate and instruct the builder to fulfil their obligations.
There are currently approximately 1.6 million homes in the UK covered by NHBC's 10 year Buildmark policy; last year we held 7,000 Resolution investigations finding in favour of the homeowner in about 70% of cases.
We understand that Charles Church / Persimmon are now taking urgent steps to rectify the outstanding issues on the homes featured on Watchdog. NHBC has already offered its Resolution service to one of the homeowners, who has contacted us directly, and we will be happy to extend that offer to the other affected homeowners if they request.
In years three to 10, NHBC's Buildmark policy covers homeowners against major expense arising from damage to their home. This includes all structural elements of the home such as the floors, walls, foundations and windows. This part of the policy also covers certain nonstructural parts of the home such as staircases, roof-coverings, drainage and double glazing, which should not normally require maintenance in the first 10 years of the home's life.
More moans about new homes