News Release from: Inspector Home, United Kingdom
New home defects increase by 53% in 2005
Edited by the Buildingtalk Editorial Team
University research paper highlights worrying trend, reports Inspector Home, the UK's leading independent new home inspection service. 

Inspector Home, the UK's leading independent new home inspection service, and Academics at the School of the Built and Natural Environment at Glasgow Caledonian University have today released the first ever research paper on snagging defects, highlighting the decreasing standards of new build housing in the UK.

The data was taken from snagging inspections carried out by Inspector Home over the past 4 years, which was then analyzed by the University. The performance of new homes, the design of new homes, the materials used in new homes and most importantly workmanship issues have all been examined in considerable detail.

Initial analysis of over 100,000 defects indicates that snagging levels in Scotland, Kent and the South Midlands are significantly worse than homes in the rest of the UK.

Workmanship issues have also been examined and it has been found that Joiners, Painters and Plumbers are responsible for over 60% of the snagging items.

Alarmingly, 95% of the new homes had already been inspected and signed off by the NHBC and yet new homes for the first half of 2005 have an average of 80 defects per property - up 53% on 2004.

Vanessa Ambler, Director of Inspector Home was disappointed by the results as she is aware of a number of developers making genuine efforts to improve quality.

'Inspector Home has been working hard with several developers to improve quality standards and we are starting to see some fantastic results coming through' says Vanessa.

'However we becoming increasingly aware of a number of developers whose standards are slipping dramatically - not just in quality but also customer care and we shall be making them aware of these results in the hope that they sit up and take notice.' Inspector Home took a petition to the House of Commons last year and Vanessa continues to fight for consumer rights for new home owners.

She wants to see the establishment of a formal regulatory body, legal consumer protection, government-set standards and league tables of property developers.

'It is only right that those developers with high standards should be distinguished from the rest' says Vanessa.

'The Barker Review recommended that by the end of 2004 a policy should be in place to improve customer satisfaction levels, and nothing has happened so far because no-one can agree on what to do'.

'The answer is so simple - when will developers finally get it?

Better quality equals more profit - we can prove it'.

Further analysis and formatting of the snagging data is currently taking place.

Nigel Craig a Research Fellow employed by the University comments that 'The data provided by Inspector Home provides the University with a wonderful opportunity to be at the forefront of this under researched area'.

'The research has so far thrown up some extremely interesting results'.

'Particular attention is being paid to the extreme variations of snagging levels within 8 different regions of the UK.

However the most extreme cause of concern is the fact that Homes in Scotland have higher levels of snagging than homes in England/Wales of a similar size'.

'Further analysis and research will have to be undertaken to examine the cause of these higher snagging levels and why Scotland in particular is underperforming with regards to the quality of new homes.'

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