1.1 Adopting the Code

1.3 Customer service: before legal completion

The Home Builder must have suitable systems and procedures to ensure it can reliably and accurately meet the commitments on service, procedures and information in the Code.

1.5 Sales and advertising

Sales and advertising material and activity must be clear and truthful.

Home Buyers must be given enough pre-purchase information to help them make suitably informed purchasing decisions.

2.2 Contact information

Home Buyers must be told how their questions will be dealt with and who to contact during the sale, purchase and completion of the Home.

2.3 Warranty cover

Home Buyers must be given accurate and reliable information about the insurance-backed warranty provided on the Home.

2.4 Health and safety for visitors to developments under construction

Home Buyers must be informed about the health-and-safety precautions they should take when visiting a development under construction.

2.5 Pre-contract information

Home Builders must advise Home Buyers to appoint a professional legal adviser to carry out the legal formalities of buying the Home and to represent their interests.

2.6 Reservation

Home Buyers must be given a Reservation agreement that sets out clearly the Reservation’s terms.

3.2 Timing of construction, completion and handover

The Home Buyer must be given reliable and realistic information about when construction of the Home may be finished, the date of Legal Completion, and the date for handover of the Home.

3.3 Contract termination rights

The Home Buyer must be told about their right to terminate the contract.

3.4 Contract deposits and pre-payments

The Home Builder must clearly explain how Home Buyers’ contract deposits are protected and how any other pre-payments are dealt with.

4.1 After Sales Service

The Home Builder must provide the Home Buyer with an accessible after-sale service, and explain what the service includes, who to contact, and what guarantees and warranties apply to the Home.

4.2 Health and safety for Home Buyers on developments under construction

Home Buyers must be told about the health-and-safety precautions they should take when living on a development where building work continues.

5.1 Complaints handling

The Home Builder must have a system and procedures for receiving, handling, and resolving Home Buyers’ service calls and complaints.

The Home Warranty Bodies have agreed to require all their registered builders to adopt and comply with the Code as a registration condition.

If a Home Builder is found to be in serious breach of the Code, Home Warranty Bodies may apply a range of sanctions which can, dependent on the relevant Home Warranty Body’s rules of registration, include requiring the Home Builder’s staff who have contact with Home Buyers to be trained on their obligations under the Code;  withholding the issuing of certificates of insurance; suspension or removal from the Home Warranty Body’s register. These are of course the most serious of sanctions that may be applied (which can affect a Home Builder’s ability to trade) and are not taken lightly.