Unfair Terms

Standard term contracts are designed to deny you fair redress

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil

Most housebuilders have standard term contracts that they require buyers to enter into to buy a new home from them, or that they might require you to sign to get works done or compensation paid for defects after you have purchased. Here are some common features of these contracts:

  • See no evil: They might say in their standard term contract that they will build in accordance with plans and specifications on display at the sales office, but then refuse to let you take copies of those documents away with you. So, how will you know if they have complied with them later on? You won’t, and that’s the point.

  • Hear no evil: Their standard term contract will usually exclude liability for things their sales team may have said to you to entice you into buying your new home. They know they will be exluding liability for this long before you do. Beware.

  • Speak no evil: If you do find problems with your new home and reach a point where the housebuilder is offering to do something about it or pay you some compensation, they may make it a condition of doing those works or making payment that you sign one of their standard term settlement contracts that contains a gagging clause to keep you quiet. These settlement contracts might come with other stings in the tail too, such as subtly getting you to settle all other potential claims whether you know about them or not - which would have the effect of rendering your new home warranty worthless and making it difficult to sell on until after the full 10+ year warranty period had expired.

Other standard clauses favoured by some housebuilders include ones that claim to force you to use unfair, opaque and biased ‘dispute resolution schemes’ designed to keep you at a disadvantage and deny you fair redress for common issues or financial losses.

Are any of these clauses unlawful? Maybe. Can they be challenged or circumvented? Possibly. Quite often, actually.

Of course, housebuilders will often be quick to point you to the fact that the New Homes Quality Board (‘NHQB’) Code of Conduct says that “The developer must make sure that the terms of the contract of sale are clear, fair and written in plain language, and that they keep to all relevant legislation” as evidence that their contracts must therefore be lawful, because NHQB has not said otherwise. But who decides if contracts are fair or lawful? Not the NHQB. No, it is the courts who decide. But try finding a court judgment on whether your housebuilder’s standard term contract is unfair and unenforceable. Until then, unless you are properly advised, chances are your housebuilder will continue to rely on potentially unfair and unlawful terms to stop you getting fair redress.

Our New Home Buyer Claims service gives you access to leading expert legal advice including how to deal with unfair terms, and how to enforce your rights to achieve a fair outcome.

Get in touch today to find out how we can help you.

Conveyancing Misconceptions

Your conveyancing solicitor is very unlikely to offer or agree to advise you on whether a housebuilder’s standard term sale contract contains potentially unfair or unlawful terms. Buying a new build home is a high value, unregulated and potentially very risky transaction. One key risk is that your new home is handed over to you in a substandard condition, possibly unfinished, and that you do not get a chance to find that out until after you have paid over the full purchase price for it. Another key risk is finding that your housebuilder’s standard term contract then seeks to serverely limit your ability to obtain fair redress for those issues. The ways in which standard term contracts achieve this are usually far from apparent to most buyers on reading the terms.

Knowing how to get build issues and related problems put right properly, efficiently and with a reasonable minimum of disruption to you, without being gravely disadvantaged by a housebuilder’s standard term contract and other techniques employed to minimise their liability at your expense, involves specialist know how and the need to take action that they will never tell you that you need to take. We have leading specialist know how and can guide you expertly through the process to achieve a far better outcome than they are likely to have in store for you otherwise.

If you rely on and use the schemes laid on by your housebuilder such as after sales customer service offerings or new home warranty arrangements to get problems put right, chances are you will not achieve fair redress. There is a reason they want you to use their schemes!

If you want to do better than they have in store for you, you will need to take back control from them. Our New Home Buyer Claims service is how you can do that. Get in touch today to find out how we can help you.