National House Building Council
 |
|
| Supporting the house-building industry in improving the build quality of new homes for homebuyers, whilst providing warranty protection to consumers when required. Non profit distributing. | |
| Industry | House building, Insurance and warranty, Training, Research |
| Founded | 1936 |
| Headquarters | Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England |
|
Key people
|
Isabel Hudson (Chairman), Steve Wood (Chief Executive Officer) Directors: Stewart Baseley, Ian Davis, Neil Jefferson, Sir John Harman, Sir (Alastair) Muir Russell, Dame Helena Shovelton, Jean Park, Ian Craston, Paul Hosking, Paul Bishop, Stephen Stone, Kate Davies |
| Revenue |
 £28,000,000 GBP surplus after tax (2010/11) |
|
Number of employees
|
1,300+ staff; including 700 inspectors, and 80 Members of the Council |
| Website | www.nhbc.co.uk |
The National House Building Council, usually known as the NHBC, states its primary purpose as raising the construction standards of new homes in the United Kingdom (UK), and providing consumer protection for homebuyers through its world-leading 10-year Buildmark warranty.
Established in 1936, NHBC is the UK's largest provider of new home warranties. According to NHBC's website, around 80% of new homes built in the UK each year have an NHBC 10-year warranty. NHBC is also the UK's largest single Approved Inspector for Building Regulations. Its other activities include the provision of services linked to house building and general construction; including energy ratings, health and safety, sustainability, and training. It also provides industry statistics and benchmarking services.
The NHBC is a non-profit distributing company, so reinvests 'profit' in its activities to improve the quality of new homes to protect the interests of homeowners.
NHBC is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA).
NHBC offers warranties for newly built or converted private housing, affordable housing, self-build homes and commercial premises located on mixed use housing schemes. Mortgage lenders 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.
Builders and developers who sell properties with NHBC warranties must adhere to NHBC's strict standards of 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.
'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 will 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.
...
Wikipedia