Our Aims
Across Great Britain, we face an acute housing shortage. To address this, successive Government’s have set increasing the number of homes being built each year as a top priority. Policies to facilitate this have seen supply double in recent years.
As Government and the house building industry looks to further increase the number of homes being built, it is imperative that build quality and customer service is an absolute priority.
The NHQB aims to deliver a step change in how the house building industry operates and deals with customers.
We want to help house building to become a modern, forward-thinking industry, and give confidence to customers when they purchase their new home.
The NHQB has developed a comprehensive, industry code of practice, titled the New Homes Quality Code (NHQC), as well as appointed the New Homes Ombudsman Service (NHOS) to adjudicate complaints against the Code. This provides independent and robust redress for new home buyers when they are dissatisfied with their purchase.
WHAT WE’RE DOING
The New Homes Quality Code consolidates and improves on existing protections covering important aspects of the sales, inspection and customer service processes; while the New Homes Ombudsman Service provides customers with free to access, timely, independent and efficient redress.
These arrangements provide customers with more confidence in new build homes, and will provide governments with the assurance that as they introduce policies to increase housing supply, the industry will be delivering high standards of quality, service and customer satisfaction.
Government has always made clear that it is expected that all of these arrangements will be paid for by the house-building industry. Access to the NHOS will be free to consumers.
The New Homes Quality Code and the New Homes Ombudsman Service to encourage and enable developers to show more responsibility and take ownership when things go wrong. With this framework in place, homebuyers will be able to make more confident, informed decisions when choosing a new home.