A SOLUTION TO THE AFTERCARE 'COST DILEMMA!'

The last 18 months has been a difficult period for the new homes sector, especially for the SME developer who doesn’t have the financial cash-cushion that the larger plc’s enjoy. Any deviation from the build programme can be a worrying red flag to a bank and that is the last thing a developer needs mid-way through a scheme.

Difficulties caused by failing contractors, protracted planning, cautious purchasers, and ballooning interest rates have all played their parts in recent times and this has meant so many have had to cut costs and manage overheads in a way not seen since the global financial crash of 2008.

Although the industry has been on the receiving end of new measures and standards introduced through the New Homes Quality Board, aftercare per se is still regarded as an overhead sitting low down in many companies’ list of operational priorities. And we get it.

To meet the minimum standard, many SME developers will hold on to aftercare and try to find ways to deliver it using internal resource. But for many, this is driven by necessity rather than ideal. Problems are manifest, such as …

·         No fulltime resource

·         No proper training

·         No suitable system

And this is the way to complaints and problems that often become a drain on resources and a distraction to business, ultimately impacting on their bottom line.

After Build has been providing aftercare for over two decades and, until recently, has operated on the principle that we fix the service cost (per plot) regardless of how many defects may be reported. We take all calls from homeowners (who use our App ‘Managing Your New Home’) and manage your contractors to organise work and appointments where necessary. This allows the developer to stand right back and get on with the things that make them money but always have access to what’s happening via our client Portal, knowing that their customer is receiving reliable, professional aftercare.

It works fantastically well.

However, paying a fixed sum for every plot means paying also for those homeowners who never report anything, and in these days of ‘belt-tightening’, that can be a problem for some businesses. Listening to developers, many feel strongly that their build quality is good and as such they anticipate that we will receive fewer calls reporting issues than we may otherwise expect. Because of this they don’t want to spend money on something that they don’t need. This we understand and so, we’ve introduced an alternative which works like this:

Pay £55 per plot to register the homeowner for the use of the App and the ability to report problems to After Build. However, for those who never report anything, we charge no more (and for those who do, we apply a single fixed fee for that plot only, which allows the homeowner to then report as much as they may need for the remainder of the 2 years cover period). In other words, “Why pay for what you don’t need?”

So, either take the original option and pay a fixed price for every plot and no more regardless of volume of defects reported (this works well for those developers who need to know the overall cost from the outset).

Or pay to register each plot and then only pay more for those properties who report something (this works well for those developers who are confident about their build quality and know we will receive relatively few calls. Statistically around 30% of all clients’ customers report something over the 2 years!)

It’s a win-win service and one that cautious business owners, who have been struggling to provide a ‘compromised’ version of aftercare, are switching to. If you would like to know more, contact Mark Fawcitt (markf@afterbuild.com) on: 07342 037810