Helping UK new home buyers

brand-newhomes.co.uk

SNAGGING AND QUALITY HOUSE BUILDERS

Problems with new homes, snagging defects and quality issues

If you are considering buying a new home from one of the large national house builders it is essential to do your research.  There are several websites that enable new homebuyers to tell others their experiences; some buyers have even built their own websites to tell the world about their new home nightmare!

One of the oldest snagging forums is snagging.org.  Over the years, 100’s of new homebuyers have posted comments about their new home and their experiences with house builders – often as a red flag warning to others!

In the table below you can see how many threads and posts have been started for each of the main house builders. (2015)

Totals include previous taken over company

 (shown in brackets)

* Bryant  ** Charles Church  *** David Wilson Homes

It can be seen that Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey have the highest number of topics and replies posted by the members of the snagging.org forum. This is the record up to March 2015 since the forum was launched in 2004. It includes all topics with a builder mentioned in the title as well as those for each builder in the ‘Developers’ category.

Anyone considering buying a new home from any of these house builders would be well advised to use the links to check out the opinions and problems experienced by new homebuyers.

Smaller regional house builders

The smaller house builder may not have the degree of flexibility to offer financial discounts, but could be in a better position to offer you a personalised bespoke design service throughout the construction of your new home. However, once you have moved in, getting any faults rectified could prove troublesome with smaller house builders, especially when a development is fully completed. The smaller builder may not have a reputation to protect and therefore have less to lose should things go wrong. On the plus side, small builders do not have the production constraints of the nationals and as a result, generally take longer to complete the home, which often results in a much higher quality and attention to detail.

The very smallest builders, those building on single or double plots on a small infill site are very much a lottery. It is possible to buy a well-built, high specification new home from a 'one-man band' builder who cares personally and takes a great pride in each and every new home he builds. Equally, it is possible to buy a new home from a group of tradesmen who have banded together to finance the build and who are only interested in the financial return.

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