The New Homes Quality Board (NHQB) has published the second edition of its New Homes Quality Code (NHQC), introducing a series of changes designed to strengthen consumer protections and improve transparency throughout the homebuying journey – from marketing and reservation through to handover and aftercare.
While the latest changes do not rewrite the NHQC, they do tighten expectations on developers, making standards clearer and more consistent. The aim is simple: better customer experience, reduce disputes and increase transparency across the new build sector.
Key updates
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Stronger consumer protections: Developers must inform customers that they are entitled to carry out their own pre-completion inspections using the NHQB’s checklist. Customers are also allowed additional time (seven days) to consider the purchase, even if this goes beyond the incentive timescale.
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Greater transparency and accountability: Developers must provide clearer and more comprehensive information at every stage of the home buying process. This includes transparency around fees, referral commissions, estate management costs, specification changes, and any limitations or caveats in marketing materials. Developers must provide homeownership and maintenance costs for a period of five years from completion.
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Enhanced requirements for customer facing teams: The updated NHQC heightens expectations on communication, record keeping and responsiveness. If recurring issues such as delays in repairs or inconsistent communication are identified, the New Homes Ombudsman Service (NHOS) may treat them as evidence of “systemic” rather than isolated failures, increasing organisational wide compliance risk.
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Updated guidance, tools and templates: All customer-facing teams must complete the updated NHQC training, with the NHQB further recommending that this should apply to all staff. If training records are incomplete or not properly monitored, a developer may be deemed non-compliant even before any consumer interaction takes place.
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Reinforced complaint handling standards: As the updated NHQC sets clearer expectations, developers who do not review and update their processes are likely to see a rise in “upheld” or “partially upheld” complaints. To support with meeting required standards, the NHOS case studies are made public and regularly used as sector learning tools.
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Movement towards sector-wide alignment: Alongside the updated NHQC, the NHQB now operates the Shared Ownership Code. Although separate to the NHQC, both codes of practice reflect a wider trend towards aligned quality and transparency standards across the housing sector.
Developers beware: key takeaways for best practice
The revised NHQC places broader and more explicit obligations on developers, increasing the likelihood of breaches where processes are not updated.
To comply with the updated NHQC, developers should take the following actions:
- Complete the mandatory updated NHQC training.
- Review and update all customer-facing documents including reservation documentations, marketing materials and handover packs.
- Use the NHQB support resources to align processes with best practice.
- Attend NHQC update webinars and sector briefings.
- Strengthen complaint-handling processes to reflect heightened expectations.
- Conduct a compliance gap analysis to identify vulnerabilities in governance, training and documentation.
- Engage early with the NHQB should any issues arise.
For advice on the New Homes Quality Code and/ or policies and procedures, reach out to one of the experts listed below.
