New Homes Ombudsman and Consumer Codes explained

You can raise a complaint with the New Homes Ombudsman providing your complaint meets the following criteria:

– The developer must be a current registered developer with the New Homes Quality Board and signed up to the New Homes Quality Code. Find a list of qualifying NHQB members and the date they joined.
– You must have reserved your property on or after the date they became a registered developer.
– The complaint relates to an issue that occurred within 2 years from your reservation date or completion date, whichever is later.
– The complaint is about a breach of the New Homes Quality Code and you have already raised this with the developer.
– You are submitting your complaint less than 12 months from the Final Closure Letter (a letter from the developer advising that the complaint has been resolved), if you have received this.
– You’ve received a Final Closure Letter or waited at least 56 days after submitting your initial complaint to the developer.

You make a complaint to the New Homes Ombudsman online or you can send your complaint by post by filling in the complaints form and posting it to the New Homes Ombudsman Service, West Wing, First Floor, The Maylands Building, 200 Maylands Avenue, Hemel Hempstead, HP2 7TG.

In both cases you’ll need to give details including your name, address and details of the developer and the property you’re complaining about.

Next, the New Homes Ombudsman Service will review your complaint and, assuming it meets the criteria, they will pass it onto the developer for their response. The New Homes Ombudsman may speak to you and the developer to see if they can work out an early resolution.

The News Homes Ombudsman will then review the information and issue a Draft Decision; you and the developer can comment on the Draft Decision and these will be considered. The New Homes Ombudsman will then issue a Final Decision.

If your complaint is upheld in full or in part, the New Homes Ombudsman may issue one or more of the following decisions:
– To require an apology
– To require the issue to be put right
– To pay compensation to the customer – up to a limit of £75,000
– Any other action that the New Homes Ombudsman considers to be reasonable and appropriate in the circumstances
– In some cases, the New Homes Ombudsman may also make specific recommendations to the developer and these may then become general recommendations to the industry.

Since the launch of the Ombudsman scheme in Nov 2022, the New Homes Ombudsman receives on average 400 calls a month and have around 70 active cases they are investigating.

If you have any queries you can contact the New Homes Ombudsman Service on 0330 808 4286 (9.00am to 5pm Monday to Friday) or by emailing customer.services@nhos.org.uk

If your house builder is signed up to the Consumer Code for Home Builders and you have a complaint, you should start by following your builder’s complaints process. This should be available on their website or on request. This may involve raising the issue in the first instance with the customer services team and escalating it to more senior staff if necessary.

If you’ve followed the complaints process and you’re not happy with your builder’s response, your next step should be to contact your warranty provider. You will need to check your documents but NHBC’s Buildmark warranty is the most common. Your warranty provider will either deal with your complaint under the terms of the warranty or if your complaint relates to a potential breach of the Code requirements, you will be given an application form and adjudication scheme rules so that you can make a free claim via the Code’s Independent Dispute Resolution Scheme.

Disputes can be escalated to the Independent Dispute Resolution Service from 56 days after your complaint was first raised with your builder and no later than 12 months after your home builder’s final response.

If the complaint is upheld you may get a performance award (where the developer has to do something), a financial award or a combination of the two.

Some Code requirements and the maximum amount you can claim differ depending on when you reserved your home.

For example, for homes reserved before 31 December 2023, the maximum award available is £15,000 including VAT; this may include an award of up to £500 for inconvenience. But for homes reserved from 1 January 2024, the maximum award available is £50,000, including up to £2,000 for upset and inconvenience.

However, the number of complaints it handles remains small. In 2022, it considered 324 cases: 19% cases were found fully in favour of the homebuyer, 28% partly in favour of the home buyer, 29% in favour of the builder and 14% of cases were settled.

The average sum claimed by home buyers was £5233, while the average sum awarded to home buyers in 2022 was £626.78. There were also 82 occasions where the home builder was asked to either undertake further work to put matters right, or undertake further exploratory work, and/or provide an apology.

In order to access the Independent Dispute Resolution Service you’ll need to follow the above steps. But for general enquiries relating to the Consumer Code for Home Builders you can call 0345 608 9797 (Monday to Friday between 10am to 4pm) or fill in an online contact form.

In the first instance you should complain to your developer but if you can’t resolve the issue you can refer directly to the Code’s Independent Dispute Resolution Scheme or to the warranty body for mediation.

You can complain to the warranty body for mediation within six months of the developer’s final response or within six months of the date of making the original complaint, whichever is later.

If the dispute falls within the terms of the structural warranty (years 3-10), the warranty body will offer their own free mediation process.

But if it doesn’t fall within the terms, the warranty body can refer the dispute to the Consumer Code for New Homes Independent Dispute Resolution Scheme on behalf of the buyer.

If you’re not happy with the warranty bodies handling of the dispute through the mediation process, you can take it directly to the Financial Ombudsman.

Firstly, you need to contact the Consumer Code for New Homes to confirm your home and the area of complaint is covered by the code. You can contact them by phone on 0333 900 1966 or by email admin@ccnh.co.uk

Next, you need to complete an application form, you’ll find it on the CEDR website, along with your evidence. You can contact CEDR on 020 7536 6150 oy by emailing applications@cedr.com

The adjudicator will ask the developer to respond. At this stage they may resolve the complaint without formal adjudication; this is called early settlement.

If not, the developer must submit their response and the adjudicator will review your complaint and the developer’s response to decide whether or not you have a legitimate dispute and have suffered financial loss and/or emotional distress and/or inconvenience, and if so how much loss/emotional distress/inconvenience

If the complaint is upheld you may get a performance award (where the developer has to do something), a financial award or a combination of the two.

In terms of the maximum financial awards, for homes reserved before 31 December 2023, complaints covered by the Consumer Code for New Homes are subject to a maximum aggregate award of £50,000 and maximum awards for financial loss of 25% of the purchase price of the home. The maximum awards for emotional distress and / or claims for inconvenience is £1,000

While for homes reserved from 1 January 2024, the maximum award for upset and inconvenience is now £2,000.

If the developer fails to accept the Adjudicator’s award, CCNH may take legal action against the developer.

And where a developer (or their agent) is found to be in serious breach of the Consumer Code for New Homes, sanctions are available through the Code including the removal of the company from the Consumer Code for New Homes’ register and all Company Directors banned.

In 2023, the Consumer Code for New Homes saw 73 cases submitted and settled. Of these, 47 were closed: 32 in favour of buyers and 15 in favour of developers; 4 cases were settled and 22 were withdrawn.

The average financial award of cases that closed in favour of the buyer or were settled was £1049. During the same year, there were also 222 issues that developers were directed to resolve, an average of 4.3 for each buyer.

When it comes to fixing these issues, one action is typically a group of tasks relating to one room or one type of issue, such as an issue with several windows. Or replacing the whole kitchen.

No. If you have bought a new home you cannot complain to the Property Ombudsman. Theyd eal with complaint between consumers and property agents.

It depends. If you own a shared ownership property or are a leaseholder with certain housing providers you can complain. Find out more from the Housing Ombudsman website here.