Advice on buying a brand new home > General discussion

Help with Consumer Code for Home Builders

(1/1)

Charlie123:
Looking for some advice please.
We put down a reservation deposit on a new off-plan build which is covered by NHBC. It is a small development and the sales negotiation was handled by a local estate agent on behalf of the developer.

Things were progressing toward exchange of contracts and then out of the blue the estate agent called us and advised that the developer was cancelling our purchase, no reason was provided despite us complaining in writing to the agent.

We have received the reservation deposit back via the estate agent but are very much out of pocket in relation to solicitors fees, moving into rented accomodation etc.

We contacted NHBC to complain and they have referred us to the Consumer Code. It appears that the code has been breached on almost every point and therefore we have a case against the developer.

So my question is, when lodging a case to the Consumer Code for consideration, is it against the estate agent who handled the sale or the developer? Neither provided any information regarding the code.

New Home Expert:
In my opinion the Consumer Code for Homebuilders isn't worth the paper it is written on.

For a start, you will need to pay £120 registration fee which you may not even get back even if you are successful! Be sure to claim for inconvenience if you decide to go ahead. (See guidance on the main website link above)

You should be able to recover your legal costs and any other costs related to the purchase such as mortgage arrangement and valuation fees but it is not a certainty.

You can forget about claiming for extra rent though.

You need to make a claim against the housebuilder.
You will need an NHBC policy number from the builder to do so.

It would be interesting to know WHY the sale was cancelled.

Navigation

[0] Message Index