Certifiably Certifiable
A certificate is evidence, but not conclusive evidence, that someone issued a certificate
Certificates of compliance, not actual compliance
Chances are, your new home will have been signed off as ‘practically complete’ by a Building Control Inspector, who will issue a Building Control Final Certificate.
‘Practically complete’ means ‘complete in all material respects save for minor defects and unfinished works that can reasonably be dealt with later on without undue disruption or inconvenience to the occupier’.
The Final Certificate is normally the very thing your housebuilder needs in order to require you to complete your purchase and hand over the full purchase price.
The Final Certificate will normally say on its face that it is ‘evidence, but not conclusive evidence, of compliance with the Building Regulations’. But just how good is that evidence of compliance?
Possibly not as good as you might think:
Sometimes Inspectors inspect a sample property and treat it as representative of how yours has been built (and maybe your housebuilder tried a bit harder with the sample property, and less so with yours…).
When site visits do take place they are occasional and limited in scope. Building Control is not a quality assurance service. It essentially amounts to a light-touch way of checking that the as-built situation ‘looks about right’ against the original plans.
When issues are identified the Inspector may then assume, or take the developer’s word for it, that the issues have since been corrected. They might not have been.
Inspectors generally have no liability to you if they sign off on a property that is incomplete or substantially defective, so there are unlikely to be any adverse consequences for them if they do. Meanwhile, they face commercial pressure to issue certificates so the housebuilder can require you to hand over the full purchase price…
Suffice to say, Certificates don’t mean Compliance.
If you have concerns about the construction quality of your new home, we can help. Our New Home Buyer Claims service gives you access to leading legal expertise and guidance on all aspects of the defects rectification process including in-depth knowledge of the various certification procedures that apply to new builds, what they mean or don’t mean, how to deal with your housebuilder’s attempts to deny you redress by relying on them, and much more besides.
Please get in touch today to find out how we can help you.
Blooming Certificates
Housebuilders seem to be issuing more and more certificates for an increasing number of aspects of housebuilding, and commonly seek to rely on the fact a certificate has been issued as evidence that your new home is built to standard, in preference to ensuring that it actually is built to standard. These may include:
Airtightness - a certificate that says your home is reasonably airtight, which is critical to achieving good heat retention, low running costs and comfortable living, and fire safety. But your certificate might have been based on design drawings rather than the as-built situation, or on results from a sample property not your home. The fact a certificate has been issued is not a guarantee that your home actually meets the intended or required standard. If your home is difficult to heat or fails to retain heat, poor airtightness could be a factor.
MVHR - Mechanical Ventilation and Heat Recovery systems are increasingly popular but can be notoriously problematic. Again, commissioning certificates could be based on design drawings rather than an as-built test, or on a sample property that could have been built to a higher standard than yours. If you are struggling to get your MVHR to work according to the paperwork, this might help to explain why.
Electrical Safety - a certificate that your electrical circuits and systems have been checked and found to be safe and in working order. Except, given the many incidents our clients have encountered with electrical faults and unsafe installations over the years, it may not be the reliable safety assurance you might hope.
If your housebuilder seeks to rely on the fact a certificate has been issued as evidence that it has complied with its obligations to you and to deny you any redress for problems you may have with your new home, we can help.
Our New Home Buyer Claims service will ensure you gain a clear understanding of the cause of the issues, what should be done about them, and what you need to do to get what you are entitled to, not what they want to get away with.
Please get in touch today to see how we may be able to help you.
‘You have more protection if you buy a toaster…’
The ‘toaster analogy’ is a common view that has been expressed by many, but is it true? And does it matter?
The toaster analogy is not very helpful in our view.
A toaster might cost you, what, £30-100? It is a consumer product and the law is clear that you can return it to the shop for a full refund if it is defective. However, proving it is defective, whilst technically necessary, is not usually required because the shop knows you could buy another toaster from countless other shops if you wanted to, and it would probably lose a customer if it took a hard line over the fact you had not done anything to prove it was defective. And for what? £30-100? It is just not worth it to say no to you. So, they give you your money back with a smile, you are happy to keep on shopping there because they are nice and easy to deal with, win win. The legal requirements for rejecting a defective toaster do exist, you just never had to work out what they were or get legal advice on them.
Very similar legal requirements and principles apply to new build defects as they do with a toaster. The main difference is that you cannot return a new build as of right if it is defective, even if you prove defects exist, but you have just as much right to a legal remedy if things go wrong. There is however a lot more at stake, and the commercial drivers are very different. Defects don’t normally cost £30-100 to fix - more like tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds to get the average new build fully up to standard. You cannot get your new build from another housebuilder, certainly not in that location. The housebuilder probably doesn’t count on you buying from it again, so that is unlikely to be a factor in its thinking. So whilst you have broadly similar ‘protections’ in law, the rules of engagement are fundamentally different.
The toaster analogy is therefore not really true, and is unhelpful as it implies that you have no rights in relation to the problems you may have with your new build. YOU MOST CERTAINLY DO HAVE RIGHTS. The main difference is that there is much more at stake so you need to find out what your rights are, how to enforce them affordably and cost-effectively, and then take the necessary action.
This is what our New Home Buyer Claims service is all about, helping you understand your rights, and enforce them, affordably and cost-effectively.
Please get in touch to find out how we can help you enforce your rights to get what you paid for, not what they want to get away with.