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THE INFORMATION AND SERVICE RESOURCE FOR NEW HOMES DEVELOPERS
NEW HOMES
QUALITY BOARD
The New Homes Quality Board (NHQB) is an independent not-for-profit body which was established for the purposes of developing a new framework to oversee reforms in the build quality of new homes and the customer service provided by developers.
NHQB PROGRESS
NOVEMBER 2022
The Register of Developers who have applied for membership is now published on the NHQB website: https://www.nhqb.org.uk/register-of-developers.html
At 1st November 2022 this comprised of 60 Active members and another 270 Pending.
APRIL 2022
Leon Livermore (previously CEO at Chartered Trading Standards Institute) is appointed CEO of the NHQB.
Rob Brighouse (snr. independent director of Network Rail and founding Chair of East West Railway Co.) is to be appointed Chair of the NHQB, replacing Natalie Elphicke.
Also joining the board are Naomi Connell (joins as an experienced audit committee chair and CFO), Curtis Juman (board-level executive with significant professional financial experience gained at Ofcom) and Paul Price (chosen for his housing and local government background).
The five individuals join the NHQB as it moves into full operation.
DECEMBER 2021
The New Homes Quality Code is published. This forms the basis for the standards and performance of the industry from 2022.
NOVEMBER 2021
The New Homes Quality Board has announced that they have selected The Dispute Service to be the New Homes Ombudsman.
The competition for this important new office was fierce. The New Homes Ombudsman is an independent entity created to provide redress for purchasers of new build homes that present problems.
JUNE 2021
A consultation into the draft New Homes Quality Code has been published by the New Homes Quality Board (NHQB).
The Code will sit at the centre of the new arrangements being put in place by the NHQB that includes the appointment of an independent New Homes Ombudsman Service (NHOS).
The Code has been in development for some four years now and has had input from a broad range of stakeholders throughout. It takes into consideration other emerging policy including on leasehold and building safety, all of which the NHQB is committed to supporting.
The consultation will run for four weeks from June 9 to July 7
MAY 2020
The New Homes Quality Board is established, chaired by Natalie Elphicke MP.
Its aims are to take responsibility for the quality of new build homes and customer redress. The NHQB will oversee the creation and adoption of a comprehensive new industry code of practice, the New Homes Code (NHO).
It will also manage the appointment of a New Homes Ombudsman Service (NHOS) to adjudicate against the new code, with responsibility for overseeing the quality and the customer service provided by developers to buyers from the sales and marketing of new homes until the end of the first two-years of ownership.
Initially an interim board, with representatives from across the sector including consumer bodies, developers, providers of new home warranties, the lending industry, Homes England and independent members to tackle these issues.
The NHQB has now been constituted as a legal entity and the board members appointed in a permanent capacity.
JUNE 2019
In June 2019, the consultation: Redress for Purchasers of New Build Homes and the New Homes Ombudsman1 was published, which explored the detail of the proposed legislation and how a New Homes Ombudsman will be delivered.
There were 376 responses to the consultation. It was deemed appropriate that the scheme should be FREE to the consumer and paid for by the developer, with a statutory obligation that builder's of new homes must belong to the scheme.
OCTOBER 2018
The government announced a New Homes Ombudsman to support homebuyers facing problems with their newly built home.
The objective is to champion the rights of homebuyers and help ensure that when they buy a new home they get the quality of build they rightly expect.
The New Homes Ombudsman will protect the interests of homebuyers and hold developers to account when things go wrong.