Your New Home

New properties are fairly unique because they are built with a mixture of inert and natural materials which may breathe, move and reach an equilibrium in the months following completion. And since buying a home represents one of the most significant investments most people will ever make, it is important that the process of buying a new home doesn’t finish when the Developer hands over the keys!

Developer's After Sales Service

Under the terms of the Consumer Code for New Homes, your Developer will provide you with an after sales service for a minimum of two years after you move into the property – details of this service will be provided in the handover pack they provided you with when you moved into your property. It will provide you with details of who to contact in the event of an emergency or if you have any issues as well as what is included in the after sales service and how it works.

If you have any issues during this period, you should contact your Developer and allow them access to your home to fix the problem.

In the event that you and the Developer can't agree what needs to be done, then you can escalate this as follows:

if the issue is related to the structural warranty, you can contact Q following the details in the "Make a Claim" section
if the issue is related to snagging or contractual issues, you can contact Consumer Code for New Homes and make use of the Dispute Resolution Process

Things to check in your new home

When moving in to a new home, you would expect that it has been constructed and finished to a reasonable standard.

During the build process, our surveying team has been inspecting the property to ensure that it is fit for insurance purposes. This means that, while we can't guarantee it's perfect, you can have a certain level of comfort about the quality of construction of the property.

However, since new homes are large and complicated, it is quite common for small items (usually cosmetic) to have been overlooked, or minor damage may have occurred prior to formal handover of your property, which may not have been addressed by the Developer.

In the first 6 months following completion of the purchase of your new home, we encourage you to formally provide the Developer with your Snagging List, so that they can address any issues with your new home as soon as possible..

Things you can look out for could include:

the property has been left as tidy as you might expect
general decorative order of all of the rooms
the condition of doors, windows and glazing
the condition of all bathroom and kitchen fittings
for flats or apartments, that all stairways, landings, entrance areas etc., are in good order
general cleanliness of the property
all fencing is in good order
the paths and drives meet expectations

You may also want to do things like:

run all the taps and showers to make sure they have been connected
put the lights on to make sure they all work
flush the toilets to make sure they work properly
make sure you know where all the controls are and how to operate them, e.g. gas isolating valve, electric isolating switches, water stop cock, central heating/hot water controls, domestic appliances etc.

And it would be worth checking that:

all instruction manuals and appliance manuals have been supplied
all the keys have been supplied
any extras you paid for have been provided
the paths and drives meet expectations
you know the type and colour of paint or stain used on exterior paintwork or render

Download our Finishes Standards + Tolerances Guide