New house buying advice

Goodie

Goodie

Goodie

Soldato
Joined
5 Dec 2003
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Right, I'm soon to begin the process of purchasing a new build house. The house isn't due to be completed until next March which is a time frame that works great for us.

We've lived together for a few years now in a rented apartment so I'm pretty savvy with all of the bills and general living things, however I was hoping that some members might be able to give me some advice from experience on things that I should be looking out for during the purchasing process. Questions to be asking and things to check. As its the first time that I've been through this process I dont want to be missing something obvious out :)
 
Don't buy a new build. It will take yeeears to ever sell for more than you've paid, they're pokey, crap gardens, leasehold. The list goes on....
 
If its freehold then the only real things to worry about are:
1) is it built on contaminated land
2) are there any restrictive covenants in place
3) how close to council houses will you be
4) is there a residents charge for driveways and immediate roads that you must pay for before the council adopts the roads?
5) does it come with an NHBC certificate or Zurich alternative?
6) what does the certification cover?
7) is the builder in a decent financial state? I.e. if things go wrong, will they be around to honour their guarantees?
8) how much deposit need you put down and is the price being charged well within the actual and realistic values of the area? (If purchasing with a mortgage, the banks values should confirm this).
9) some of the best solicitors out there are NOT the cheapest and often the one being recommended by the agent Is by far the best. Make sure you DON'T use the cheapest option but do find one that is 'no sale, no fee'

Can't think if anything else really

Get legal advice of course
 
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cheers folks. There definitely some on there that I should have considered that I hadn't thought about yet.The builder is a fairly big one, Taylor Wimpy so I'm confident enough in their guarantees.

As for the deposit, we are going to go the way of the help to buy scheme. Initially we were just going to stay in our rented accommodation until we had enough saved to pay for a deposit, however I am wary that while we are doing that we will still be paying allot out in dead money rent. This way we will be able to move out of the rented accommodation sooner and will easily have the money available at the end of the 0% interest five-year period.
 
When you sign for the house make sure you snag everything that isn't even remotely right. On my new build I had the builder replace over 90 bricks as they were chipped / cracked in half. Later to be told that the bricky that built my house was sacked over his work! Other things included;

Combi boiler drainage pipe blocked causing explosive ignites (this took a year or so to diagnose in the end, despite numerous visits).

Garage not connected to the electric.

Numerous sockets not working.

Internal door glass door cracked.

Bathroom sink not attached to the wall.

Heating pipes not lagged so when heating and cooling they would creak across the floor joists.

Incorrect ridge tiles used on the garage (some bodged ones off a different house).

Front door lock ceased after about a month.

Outside drain not capped off and just covered with a layer of stones to mask it.

Fence posts at massively different length between each one (were talking 20cm each one higher and lower)

There was loads more but this was nearly 7 years ago! Good luck!!!
 
That's a good list from fastwunz.

Depending on where it is, find out about parking. Also, find out whether it's on a flood plain.
 
I think generally just make sure you understand what it is you are buying if its off plan, I.e. make sure you are fully aware of the room sizes etc.

If there's no show home see what other developments they have nearby to go and have a peak, chances are the same house type will be used somewhere else so you can go and see one.

As for pricing just make sure you're not over paying, look at similar new-ish houses on the market in that general area to get an idea of what you should be paying.

Be careful when using these schemes to buy though, we're in the process of buying a new build (not through a scheme) and have been told those buying through them aren't being given any discounts! Of course that will vary between developers so not always the case but worth considering.

Check where the social housing will be, plot position is massively important so try to get as best a plot you can.
 
Having bought a new build before now knowing what the builders snagging policies and processes are is important.

You want to know that any problems you find will be fixed quickly, professionally and when you want them done. How you report them may vary dependent on the state of the development as a whole and you may not be finding all the snags straight away so you need to know how the processes change over time.
 
What developer is it from? that would inform what I would be looking for.

What CODE rating is it? how many points did they get and how did they achieve it.
How are they achieving the renewables?
What heating system?
Is there RW harvesting?
Are the roads adopted?
Any maintenance charges?
Covenants?
Parking
Boundaries
Flood risk or flood aleviation measures

It shouldn't matter if it's built on contaminated ground i.e. it should have been remediated to a clean standard but it could be useful to know.

Also the Master Plan, is there any more to come, i.e. that nice little hedge could suddenly become a through road to another 500 houses.
 
maccapacca said:
What developer is it from? that would inform what I would be looking for.

What CODE rating is it? how many points did they get and how did they achieve it.
How are they achieving the renewables?
What heating system?
Is there RW harvesting?
Are the roads adopted?
Any maintenance charges?
Covenants?
Parking
Boundaries
Flood risk or flood aleviation measures

It shouldn't matter if it's built on contaminated ground i.e. it should have been remediated to a clean standard but it could be useful to know.

Also the Master Plan, is there any more to come, i.e. that nice little hedge could suddenly become a through road to another 500 houses.
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Some interesting points on that list there, I'd not really heard about the Code thing before so might have to look that up for one we're buying.

And that latter point reinforces my comment on getting the right plot, we've seen some on developments where they look good but when you check out the council planning docs you see what is planned for over that hedge and it then doesn't look so good ;)

One of the things with our dev is that they are claiming no social housing (in reality it's there but in the other phases/fields they are building). However looking at the plans you can see that houses that back on to one of the other phases are right behind some planned social. Now that's not a bad thing necessarily, I'm not knocking social housing per se, just that one of the selling points of those properties has been the fact there is none on the development, and people will likely be paying a small premium for the privilege!
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_for_Sustainable_Homes

When planning permission is given a CODE rating is given, it's a minimum to be met, depending on the developer would depend on how they acheive this.

For example

One point is given for tidy driers over bath which are horrid things and add no real value, some developers wouldn't dream of putting these in, ditto RW havesting, some may be a bin connected to your downpipe and better ones would be underground storage and using it to flush the loos both generate the same points but make the development very different.
 
Cheers, a cursory look over things and I think they are building to a Code level 3, but I'll have to have a dig through any of the planning apps to find out for sure :)
 
Oh how blind you all are! Forget the house, that's almost inconsiquential.

Goodie said:
We've lived together for a few years now...
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If it's a woman be aware that you're pretty much bouncing off the limiter already. Once your moved in she will go bat **** crazy and then it's kids and all the crap that comes with that...GET OUT NOW!

Source: Experience

:D
 
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