National House Building Council

NHBC was originally set up as the National House Builders Registration Council (NHBRC) in the United Kingdom in 1936, with the primary purpose to increase the care and professionalism shown by house builders.

As a Registered Housebuilder under the voluntary scheme, houses were inspected during building, buyers were covered by a two-year warranty against major defects, and against the insolvency of the builder. By 1963, 26% of all housing was built by Registered Housebuilders.

In 1964 and 1965, changes were introduced, including the extension of the warranty to ten years. The NHBRC's standards were upgraded in 1967, particularly in the provision of power outlets, kitchen design, and space heating; drawing on the recommendations of the Parker Morris Committee. By the end of 1970, 92% of new homes were built by NHBRC members.

In 1973, the name changed to the National House Building Council (NHBC), and the organisation became completely independent from government and house builders. It was approved by the Department of Trade as an insurance company.

New home warranty and build standards

The NHBC states that its primary purposes are raising the construction standards of new homes in the United Kingdom (UK), and providing consumer protection for homebuyers through its 10-year Buildmark warranty. NHBC offers warranties for newly built or converted private housing, affordable housing and commercial premises located on mixed use housing schemes. Mortgage lenders in the UK will usually require that a warranty is in place before lending on a newly built property, as detailed in the Council of Mortgage Lenders' handbook. According to NHBC's website, around 70% of new homes built in the UK each year have an NHBC 10-year warranty.

Builders and developers who sell properties with NHBC warranties should adhere to NHBC's guidance documents on construction contained in the NHBC Technical Standards, in addition to complying with Building Regulations in the UK.

NHBC inspectors visit building sites at key stages to check compliance with its Technical Standards. The stages are usually (but can sometimes be more): foundations, drainage, superstructure (e.g. brickwork), pre-plaster, and pre-handover to the buyer. For flats, they also inspect roof construction. The inspection process is not designed to check every detail of the build, but if NHBC is satisfied with the overall build quality they will issue the warranty for the new home/premises. If reportable items are found during the build NHBC may still class as an acceptable risk and pass the build anyway.

'Buildmark', the NHBC warranty for private housing is split into two parts. In the first two years, the builder is responsible for fixing any defects caused by its failure to build to NHBC Technical Standards. If the builder fails to do this, or has gone out of business, NHBC may take responsibility to fix the defect. From the start of the third year, until the home is ten years old, NHBC is responsible for putting right defects to the structural and weather-proofing parts of the home caused by breaches of its Technical Standards but only if 'damage' has occurred.

Criticism

The NHBC was criticised on a 2010 edition of the BBC consumer television programme Watchdog, for failing to repair homes due to incorrect surveying of problem properties by relevant professionals, and thus failing to either compensate owners financially or fix any problems promptly, for newly built properties under their warranty.

NHBC apologised to the families featured in the Watchdog programme for any mistakes that were made during the handling of their claims. NHBC argued that the cases showed how complex construction issues can be, and that expert opinions from construction professionals could differ. They also stated that they resolve claims from around 15,000 homeowners each year on homes up to 10 years old, and also help to resolve around 5,000 disputes between homeowners and their builders each year.

In 2010/11, NHBC paid claims totalling £74.4 million.

Further criticism followed in 2017 with the BBC reporting "growing concerns that the quality of homes being built has drastically dropped" and one surveyor concluding that a client's new home was "unfit for habitation" and in places "unsafe". At the time the government was pressuring house developers to target the building 300,000 new homes a year.