Hello and welcome to this week’s episode of let’s get snagging if you are in the process of buying or have bought a new build property then this podcast is for you 

My Name is Ian and I run Lively Professional services   Ltd a new build snagging company

 In this episode let’s have a look at why your developer’s customer care department don’t seem to care when it comes to dealing with your snags

Let me start by saying not all customer care departments don’t care there are some good ones out there.

As new build home buyers, you would assume that the advantage of buying a newly built property is that it has never been lived in before, and there should be little or no issues with it. 

Unfortunately, this is not always the case, some new build homeowners have experienced major problems with their new home after moving in. This can be a huge disappointment when you have made such a large investment in your new home. 

 In this day and age having a mediocre standard of customer service is no longer acceptable. So, why do some of our major housebuilders continually deliver poor quality homes and customer service.

It is incredible, how some, but not all, of our national house builders, find it acceptable to poorly treat their customers once they have taken possession of their new home, especially when it comes to fixing their snagging issues. 

The number of times we see the same issues during our inspections, surely the site manager can see them as well, if you take a look at our YouTube channel you will see exactly what I mean. So why don’t they fix them before handing the keys to their customers, it’s not hard and would make the whole customer experience better.

Some developers also take a long time to fix snags and we hear some of our customers who have to fight to get their snags fixed, this can have a huge effect on new home buyers and can spoil the excitement they had and totally ruin the experience of owning a brand-new home.

One of the problems is some developer’s customer care departments, are often filled with people who either don’t care, have little or no knowledge of how a newly built home is constructed or the standards they should be built too and at times are totally unable to empathise with their customers.

Yet, these companies tell you when buying one of their homes how great their product is and how their customer service is second to none. 

Trust me it’s not because if they can save money without fixing your snags they will, don’t forget it’s a commercial business and if they can save money they will.

How fantastic would it be if all customer care teams could put themselves in their customers place, and experience how they are treated, sometimes ignored, fobbed off, bullied, and generally not listened too, ending in new homebuyers feeling disillusioned, frustrated, angry, neglected, and unappreciated?

Homebuyers should not have to fight to get their defects rectified, or worse, not knowing if any defects are likely to be rectified at all by their builder. No wonder this leaves them feeling disillusioned and wishing they had never bought a newly built home.

One area that could be improved upon is communication, this is sometimes missing in some customer care departments, along with sufficient resources to manage customer care promptly without causing undue stress.

What any homebuyer wants above anything else, is to know that their snags will be rectified, first time, preferably without making them worse, and needing to be fixed yet again, following the first poor attempt.

Another area which could be greatly improved is to organise a time to suit all parties for these snags done, without it taking weeks or months trying to get snags fixed, we constantly hear from our customers how they are being drip-fed trades, instead of all the relevant trades, arriving on the same day. How good would that be, it's not hard to organise.

Housebuilders need to appreciate their customers who have spent a huge amount of money, buying their new home from them. 

Those customers that do complain but are not dealt with to their satisfaction are then only too happy to voice their dissatisfaction to anyone that will listen and give the developer a bad survey.

Developers who are chasing 5-star status do not like receiving bad reviews as one bad review takes ten good ones to cancel it out.

At the start of and through the buying process is the time for developers to manage the expectations of their customers, once a customer has moved into their new home and becomes unhappy, it is very difficult to then make that customer happy developers should concentrating on delivering exceptional customer service, (it’s in the words).

For this to happen, the culture within the industry will have to change because the on-site quality controls some developers currently have, are not working. 

They are aware of this, and some developers are still happy to produce new homes that are of poor quality because they know, new home buyers have no real come back against them to rectify their defects. 

It is a sad situation when you have more rights buying a pair of jeans than you do spending hundreds of thousands on a new home, at least you can take the jeans back it you are not satisfied with them you can’t do that with a new home.

Hopefully this is about to change with the New Homes Quality Board and New Homes Ombudsman who are now in place, however, time will tell if they are going to make a difference.

Until then, newly built home buyers are going to have to fight for their rights and insist their defects are rectified. 

Unfortunately, the only leverage newly built homeowners have is the HBF and NHBC surveys they will receive 6-8 weeks after legal completion. 

My advice is do not sign the survey until you are 100% happy all your snags have been fixed to your satisfaction.

After you have moved into your new home, If you discover any snags, you should report them to your builder as soon as possible. Under your warranty agreement your developer is obliged to rectify any defects reported to them within the first two years. 

These are covered under the terms of the ten-year warranty which you should have received with your new home. It should also be covered in your homeowner’s pack which you might have received from your builder or warranty provider.

I would always advise sending any snagging list to your developer’s customer care department first, even if you are going to give the list to your site manager. 

It’s not uncommon for snagging lists to be misplaced or the site manager changes, and the new manager has no idea of any snags you might have.

 That way you and the customer care department have copies of any snagging lists and you also have an audit trail if you ever need to make a claim under your warranty agreement.

After your builder’s initial 2-year warranty period has finished, any further defects should be made to your warranty provider. 

In some instances, homebuyers can find themselves in a situation where they cannot agree with the developer on the works necessary to rectify their snags. 

Other times a developer might simply refuse to do them, then It may be possible to refer them to your warranty provider to intervene using their free dispute resolution service. You can also use this service if your building company is dissolved or no longer exists when you find an snags. 

One thing to bear in mind is regardless of your warranty, your developer will only deal with issues caused to your house because of the failure to build it to the warranty provider’s requirements, and It does not cover cosmetic issues such as decoration. It is therefore important that you fully understand what is and is not covered under your warranty. 

Further advice

Because of the level of cover provided under your warranty, it may not always be possible to seek solutions for the problems you have. If that fails, you could also refer your complaint to the New Homes Quality Board or New Homes Ombudsman. 

Dealing with snags in a newly built home can sometimes be difficult and extremely stressful. Especially if your developer is unresponsive or your warranty provider is unable or unwilling to help.

 If that happens and you’ve exhausted all your options, then your only course of action might b to seek legal advice.

I hope you’ve enjoyed todays podcast episode please do consider Subscribing and leaving us a review we really love reading your reviews and it gives me ideas for future episodes. 

 If there is anything else, you would like me to cover then you can always drop me an email to Socials@livelyprofessionalservices.co.uk 

 If you want to know what we do or would like more information, you can visit our website at www.livelyprofessionalservices.co.uk

And don’t forget to check out our YouTube Chanel

Until Next Time see you soon.,