Required warranties and insurances

[Conor]

Hi. I've been focusing so much on technical and design aspects, I'm off the reservation in terms of building warranties etc.

 

What do you actually need in terms of warranties etc for mortgaging and insuring your house after completion and BC signoff? 

 

It will be unlikely I'll be using a main contractor, so won't have a warranty for the whole build.

 

I'm building using raft founds, ICF, part basement, rest conventional. What do I to arrange to satisfy mortgage companies?

[ragg987]

You need a warranty if you want a mortgage and BC is mandatory to sign off the build.

 

Both need inspections and you can save a lot of money by combining them as inspections for one serves the other.

 

Your build route does not effect warranty, which only covers pretty limited situations. Some have not bothered which is fine is you don't need a mortgage or intend to live in the house beyond 10 years.

[Conor]

Thanks @ragg987

 

I'm in Northern Ireland and building regulations and inspections are run by the local council. I'm assuming I'll need to contact a warranty provider and arrange inspections etc from the start?

[ragg987]

Hi, I am in England and not aware of NI requirements Here council is one option for BC, but private companies can also do too. I used Buildzone, adding BC on top of their Warranty was a small difference, I think around £200 (but was a while ago and memory not so good...).

[vfrdave]

On 12/06/2019 at 15:51, Conor said:

Thanks @ragg987

 

I'm in Northern Ireland and building regulations and inspections are run by the local council. I'm assuming I'll need to contact a warranty provider and arrange inspections etc from the start?

You either need a warranty from the likes of nhbc if going down the contractor route, or an architect/engineer to sign off at stage releases and signoff.

[Declan52]

I used my architect to provide a warranty. It was the mortgage company who will want a warranty in place. At each of the stages they set out my architect would write a letter saying that the founds, wall plate,roof etc where built to the relevant regulations and they would release the money.

Before you start it's good to phone your local building control council officer and introduce yourself and ask them what stages he wants to come out and inspect plus how much notice he would like. It will be the digging of your founds, might want to see the walls going up, roof on and then he will just want all the electric and plumbing certs and all along the way he will be ticking the boxes and let you know what's still to be completed to his satisfaction before he will give you the completion cert. All your doing is touching base and getting off on the right foot. 

Unless your going to sell in the first 10 years a nhbc type warranty is not worth the paper it's wrote on.

[newhome]

Buildzone provided my warranty and also carried out inspections for their own purpose to ensure that the building was fit for purpose when the warranty was issued. I am in Scotland and the LA cover the building control inspections (sounds the same as NI) so this was all arranged through them.