New Home Warranties

[LIP]

What do you think of these warranty schemes.????

 

[IanDB]

If you're talking about NHBC or Zurich 10 year type schemes they're better than nothing. However they only cover you for really major structural problems. They are not warranty schemes as such. My neighbour managed to get them to cough up for a major water problem round his chimney but I had no joy with a problem with my "mortar" (mainly sand) as that was not considered a structural problem. There's a few posts on this topic around.

 

[LIP]

On their paperwork in quotes " Raising House Building Standards for Homebuyers"

How can they be raising the standards for home buyers if there is no formal contract between the house buyer and NHBC???

I raised an enquiry several weeks ago and no one has replied.

 

[IanDB]

How can they be raising the standards for home buyers if there is no formal contract between the house buyer and NHBC???

That's because the contract is between the BUILDER and the NHBC. All you get is a certificate showing that such a contract exists and giving a reference number.

You can get a copy of the policy if you contact the right part of the organisation. You'll find that there are various levels of cover that can be taken out ranging from bog standard to gold star (my paint's discoloured type of thing). I'll think you'll find that in 99.999999% of cases the builder will have taken out the cheapest one (I wonder why?). In theory, as this is a type of extended warranty arrangement, it does add a further check in the system as an organisation such as NHBC should inspect the work to make sure it comes up to their standards.

What it also does is to act as a handover of obligation point between the builder and the NHBC. Once the certificate is in place you don't go back to the builder, you go to the NHBC. However if the fault isn't covered by the NHBC policy you're shafted. Unless you go through the mill as Mark Smith has done (re: Property Developers) you won't get any recompense.

So, in short, it might raise standards and it does provide a safeguard against really bad problems but it doesn't help at all with anything else. (My view anyway.)