Property Tips by Chartered Surveyors  from the Haynes House Manual series

Should buyers of new homes get a survey?

If you buy a new car and problems arise you’re covered by the manufacturer’s warranty for at least the first 3 years.   But there are so many stories of buyers of poorly constructed newbuild homes finding they’re unable to get defects remedied without enormous stress and expense.  So it makes sense to try and identify defects before completing the purchase as you would with a second hand property.

As with so many problems where UK consumers are short-changed by large corporate firms  ( e.g. water companies and railways are especially notorious) the root cause is a lack of Government regulation that fails to hold the directors / owners of poorly managed firms to account.   ‘Cutting red tape’ is all very well until it results in tragedies like Grenfell Tower where the providers and installers of construction materials were largely unregulated.

The statistics for satisfaction with new homes in Britain are shocking:  95% of new owners of newbuild homes actually reported problems to the builders of their home after moving in  (Home Builders Federation National New Homes Customer Satisfaction Survey March 2024).

And as many as 1 in 3 of these reported more than 15 snags.  Which means there’s a very high chance that as a buyer of a new home you too will be troubled by issues arising.

Newbuild homes

The overwhelming majority of new homes in the UK are built by large corporate developers, unlike in much of mainland Europe in countries like Germany where self-build and small builder custom homes are far more common.

One major problem with corporates is that to keep costs down and maximise profits new homes are built to a very basic specification using cheap materials as quickly as possible.

Labour costs are also kept as low as possible and in some firms the trades on site are poorly managed. This can result in bad feeling and serious errors, so unfortunately mistakes are far too common.

A large number of complaints in new homes relate to things like plumbing issues, badly fitted or totally omitted insulation or poor quality joinery. Although structural problems do sometimes occur the developers find it harder to wriggle out of resolving these as the  NHBC warranty (or equivalent) will  clearly cover such major problems.

Of course all new homes should have been constructed in accordance with Building Regulations but inspections to monitor compliance on site are very limited. Effectively corporate developers are allowed to ‘self-regulate’ on site.

New homes also come with a structural warranty from an approved provider that is acceptable to mortgage lenders. But claims for smaller ‘snagging’ issues are commonly rebuffed by developers some of whom make it very difficult for owners to get repairs carried out.

So in the absence of effective site management and sometimes dismal after sales customer care the next best thing is for buyers to pro-actively obtain a list of defects from a qualified RICS Chartered Surveyor and insist these issues are fully remedied by the developers prior to completion.

What is snagging?

There’s no legal requirement to obtain a survey or a snagging list.  But Chartered Surveyors managing construction projects normally keep a retention from the payments due to the builders until the post completion ‘Defects Liability Period’ of up to 6 months has completed and any snags have been made good by the builders.

So it’s a good idea to apply the same principle to identify any problems and make sure your developer fixes them.

Although some defects (such as leaks) can take time to manifest themselves an experienced surveyor should be able to deduce problems that are likely to arise and will be used to spotting poor build quality.

Most developers will consider it reasonable for customers to instruct a pre-completion survey and to require any significant defects or snags to be made good prior to moving in. But it’s important to agree this via your conveyancers prior to instructing the survey.

Most RICS Chartered Surveyors on Rightsurvey.co.uk will be able to quote for preparing snagging lists as part of a survey.  Go to our Homebuyer Survey form and mention the snagging requirement in the information box.

See Rightsurvey.co.uk for a quick guide to valuation and survey prices

Check out our other posts for more info that will help you pay the right price for the right property.

We would always recommend using RICS certified surveyors in every instance – don’t get caught out, get instant quotes for RICS surveyors here.

 Ian Rock’s Rightsurvey property tips are taken from the Haynes House Manual series.