LABC or private. Protek structural warranty?

[flanagaj]

Can anyone provide advice here.  I've been told that even if I use LABC for sign off, I still have to pay the technical audit fee and have an independent inspector perform said audit.  So I am now thinking why you'd go down that route.  I am concerned about the private route as some of the stories on here seem to suggest they can be real sticklers.

 

Appreciate any pointers.

 

Before anyone tells me to not bother with the SW, unfortunately, it's a condition of our self build mortgage and they only have a handful of suppliers on their preferred list.

[G and J]

The structural warranty technical audits are completely separate to those undertaken for building regulations (although there is of course some overlap in what they are looking at). 

 

The warranty company are basically trying to make sure they never have to pay out. Building control that you are following the regulations.

[flanagaj]

4 minutes ago, G and J said:

The structural warranty technical audits are completely separate to those undertaken for building regulations (although there is of course some overlap in what they are looking at). 

 

The warranty company are basically trying to make sure they never have to pay out. Building control that you are following the regulations.

Does that mean that there are a whole additional set of regulations on top of those mandated by building control?

[G and J]

No, there shouldn't be,  both are working to same regs, but as in all situations individuals may have a keener eye on areas of interest to them, so you do need to keep them all on side.

 

Some warranty providers do also offer building regs, whether having them do both is a good idea, Idk, our building control guy is experienced and pragmatic.

[-rick-]

6 minutes ago, G and J said:

No, there shouldn't be,  both are working to same regs, but as in all situations individuals may have a keener eye on areas of interest to them, so you do need to keep them all on side.

 

The different warranty providers do sometimes have additional requirements that go beyond pure building regs. NHBC definitely does (but doesn't really deal with self-builders). LABC have a large guidance doc that should be consulted before using them for warranty. Don't know about others. They don't want you doing things that have a high history of claims, even if it is building regs compliant.

[Gus Potter]

1 hour ago, flanagaj said:

Does that mean that there are a whole additional set of regulations on top of those mandated by building control?

I'll try and chip in here, some comment may not be specific but I'll try and outline some of the issues. Excuse the spelling and grammer as I'm off duty.

 

To provide a bit of context. From time to time I get involved in representing Clients who are having difficulty in bringing the warranty providers to the table as they refuse to play ball when a Claim arises. The modus is; delay / deny /defend. By the time I get called in things are often serious and relationships have broken down. But that is not the case here and my experience also allows me to look at things holistically.

 

Now, I also very occasionaly get involved at the stage where the self builder is trying to obtain a warranty later in the day.. in other words the build has started but the mechanics of the self build funding / lending require a warranty from say the NHBC / ProteK et al. Now nothing has gone wrong here. All that is happening is that the Client is playing catch up and often needs to get a warranty in place so they can obtain more favourable lending. Again no one has fallen out at this stage and the aim is to negotiate an equitable warranty deal. 

 

One key starting point is that BC approval is totally different from and not in principle related to what is an insurance policy you are taking out. Local Authority BC often write, when they give approval, words to the effect that the Client is responsible for a building regulations compliant design. In effect this means that even if local authority BC miss something it's not their problem. So yes, if you want a warranty the rules are different as you are entering into a financial arrangement with an insurer.

 

1 hour ago, G and J said:

The warranty company are basically trying to make sure they never have to pay out. Building control that you are following the regulations.

In fairness they do pay out if conditions are met. To get a feel for what's going on let's put ourselves in the warranty providers shoes. For some of the stalwarts on BH.. go to the toilet, compose yourself come back and read on. 

 

Let's say your build cost is 300k. A typical premium that a warranty provider may ask for is about 1.0 to 1.5% of the build cost. So take the higher end 0.015 * 300000 = 4.5K. Now lets see what profit they might make off that given that they are putting thier neck on the line for 10 years. 

 

Some providers will do 3 inspections some more. But just say they do three (ProteK I believe aim for 5) . Now an inspector can do at best 2 a day.. if the sites are close. But life is not like that where you can do 2 inspections a day week in week out. Then they need to write up the report do all the admin. Call that £400 quid a day so there goes £1200 quid. Now we are down to 4.5 - 1.2 = 3.3k. There is a bit of two and fro (I'm an SE and this post will take about an hour and a bit to write infomally, I think before I write so that counts also) so deduct another 1.0k for that two and fro. Now we are down to 2.2k. The insurer may choose to lay off some of the risk with a Lloyds syndicate so they will take their cut. The NHBC apparently have a huge pot of cash and I understand they basically self insure like local councils. I may be wrong however. 

 

For those that have interest the history of the NHBC is fascinating.. they abandoned their principles a few decades ago mind. 

 

While my figures are rough you can see that at best the warranty provider may be grossing as profit is max 2.0k and for that they have to underwrite for ten years. That is why they must shed as much liability on to folk like me, the Client and so on. 

 

The last bit is eccletcic. When I used to run a Contracting business and say we were fitting doors at £100.0 quid a pop. The apprentice was fitting the lock and destoyed the door. Working on 20% gross profit they then needed to fit another five perfectly to get to a basic recovery position. But I still need to pay for their holidays and so on.

 

Imagine you then make a claim against the warranty provider.. there is a lot of admin at their end and they may have to pay for an inspector to come out. It may turn out they are on the hook! 

 

Do the maths for yourself, recognise how the warranty business works, be aware. Once you are aware then it's your choice to decide if that suits you or not. 

 

There was a recent thread on BH about Potten going under. The key to business is profit, that is sanity, turnover is vanity. 

 

1 hour ago, G and J said:

The warranty company are basically trying to make sure they never have to pay out.

Again, for the small profit they make you can't blame them!

 

I'll be blunt over the last five years I've extracted well over two million quid on just two claims where I've represented Clients. They will have to write lots of permiums to recover from that. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited Thursday at 22:22 by Gus Potter

[Nickfromwales]

1 hour ago, Gus Potter said:

Again, for the small profit they make you can't blame them!

Maybe you're ignoring the huge volume, plus the people who never claim.....aka balance? How many motorists were on the roads today, and maybe 5 or 10, or 25% had an accident..... It's like a lottery win every day for these providers!

 

The majority of claims are bogus until challenged, an evaporate as quickly as they appeared. Insurance companies pay specialists to review and investigate claims to try and find a way to get off the hook. Ask me how I know!

 

I have zero sympathy for insurers, they make a fortune, end of. My 17 year old son changed the postcode for his car insurance policy quote to a "des-res" area 10 miles away, and it dropped by £2k. WTAF???

 

My oldest was sitting at a red light, broad daylight, and 'whack'. Some 17 year old girl in a clio wrote him off. Hit him so hard the radio was in his lap. She got out of the car and said she didn't see him as she was still on a facetime call with her boyfriend. Then her family rallied to the scene and advised she said to the police her brakes failed; a quick search showed the car MOT'd a few weeks prior. No charges brought btw. As she was a weeping 17 year old girl not one of the crowd of attending "police officers" approached my son to ask if he was injured or needed medical attention. He rang me and I said he should walk the scene and video the lot for insurance to not argue back. He then got challenged and threatened in front of said "public servants". Useless wankers in attendance that night.

 

My sons renewal then shot up as he had to declare a (expletive deleted)ing non fault accident. That is just legalised theft, plain and simple.

 

If it's such a poor income generated from being a warranty provider (insurance company) then the warranty companies should accept financial advisors recommendations to close the doors perhaps, eh? Or maybe they still operate as it turns out it's not so bad after all?

 

C'mon people....... 🙃

 

FFS.

 

PS, it's good to vent. No personal attack etc.

[Gus Potter]

6 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

Maybe you're ignoring the huge volume, plus the people who never claim

No I'm not and I speak from experience, that said, you are right Nick and I had not included that in my previous post. . Say you are a young couple that has bought their first house and are skint. They suspect that something is wrong, they contact the warranty provider, they might send and inspector after many emails and then do the delay.. they work their way around to inferring that the young folk need to spend cash to investigate further which they often don't have. So I get a phone call,  I listen, try and give advice and then say I need to be paid if they want to go full monty. It breaks my heart at times. I know the warranty provider are taking the piss while at the same time being very pleasant about it and personable..

 

But the KEY here is that as an insurer you can hear off half the claims straight away so folk never get round to making a formal claim. For all this is a numbers game. I know this as I sometimes do this as a day job!

 

In my earlier post I explain the finances of the warranty system.

22 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

I have zero sympathy for insurers, they make a fortune,

I don't think they do make that much in the self build market, which is risky.  There are a pile of self builders that have no clue what they are doing. There are also some devious self builders that try their hand as a one off.. not all self builders are honest to god! A few have cropped up on BH from time to time. In the volume build market you have loads of professionals involved and that reduces risk. 

 

30 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

PS, it's good to vent. No personal attack etc.

It's not venting. It is an adult discussion. BH is one of the few forums where you can be open and honest. 

[nod]

It’s probably been pointed out above

It’s unlikely that  any will pay out for anything other than subsidence 

and they will chase you as the builder before they take any liability 

 

We used Protec for our first build 

Inspected the foundations from his car To muddy Forget his Wellies 

The roof inspection was done from the ground 

Though he did say I’d done a cracking job😁

Final inspection was done from our hallway No walk round As with the previous inspections 10 minutes Job done 

They rely on BC doing there job before they get there 

[flanagaj]

@Gus Potter I'm not sure of the relevance of your post.  I am not interested in whether these providers make money or not.  All of the policies will have been derived via an actuary and if they get the model wrong, well, that's just business.

I am more interested which option is going to be the less painful.  LABC inspection or a private one associated with Protek.  The last thing I want, is to build according to building regs and then discover Protek have their own set of additional regs which I am unaware of.  I assume that when you submit your drawings to Protek (I assume you do), they will tell you upfront whether they want things done differently to standard building regs?

[G and J]

10 hours ago, G and J said:

The warranty company are basically trying to make sure they never have to pay out. Building control that you are following the regulations.

The subtext to the post above was more in the spirit that we actually want a house that is fit for purpose, if not better, and by having 2 parties involved we feel we've got a bit more value.....it was not intended as a dig at the insurers, who are providing a service that we wanted (i.e. the safety net of future mortgagability).

 

13 minutes ago, flanagaj said:

  I assume that when you submit your drawings to Protek

Protek never saw our drawings, but they had links to planning documents

Edited Friday at 06:56 by G and J
Typo

[flanagaj]

Our mortgage offer and Protek warranty both state that the house build has to be completed in two years.  Our initial plan before we do anything else, is to get out of our rented accommodation and into a static caravan on site.  But to do this, we need to install the drainage field and approved sewage treatment plant.  This I assume will mean that we have commenced development and the 2 year clock will start ticking.  We do have the funds sets aside to enable us to do this without us needing to draw on the funds.   I am just not sure whether Protek need to be involved regarding the drainage field.  We are basically trying to hold off from using the mortgage and starting the clock ticking until we are actually ready to really get going.   

Basically, once we are living on site, I don't care if we don't actually start building until next Spring.  We also would prefer not to have a timescale to get completed, as we want to use our monthly wages and do a huge amount ourselves.  If it takes 3 years and we have not had to borrow much money, then that is much better than completing in 2 years, but being mortgaged up to the eyeballs. 

Edited Friday at 08:03 by flanagaj

[G and J]

I think the only safe option regards what constitutes development in Proteks mind is to ask them......we've found them to be very helpful.

 

Maybe a call and then a follow up email to confirm what you've understood?

[Nickfromwales]

15 minutes ago, flanagaj said:

But to do this, we need to install the drainage field and approved sewage treatment plant.  This I assume will mean that we have commenced development and the 2 year clock will start ticking

Simple. You just put the static on a couple of extra blocks and hire an above ground poop tank, as we do with bigger welfare units on site. No need to tell anyone anything then. 

[Nickfromwales]

7 hours ago, Gus Potter said:

There are also some devious self builders…….A few have cropped up on BH from time to time.

 Very true, unfortunately.

[ToughButterCup]

2 hours ago, flanagaj said:

...
I am more interested which option is going to be the less painful.  LABC inspection or a private one associated with Protek. 

...

 

At this remove we can't tell.

The answer is likely to involve local politics (not party politics - just simple chemistry). And its really hard to find out because ' the office'  isn't the representative who comes and weighs up what's happened. 

 

In your situation I'd ask around local builders and agents and listen to what they have to say. Not an easy job because to get a good 'feel' for the answer, you're going to need to talk to lots of people.

 

As usual @nod is bang on the money (above) . Our experience exactly.

[Gus Potter]

On 08/08/2025 at 07:42, flanagaj said:

I'm not sure of the relevance of your post.  I am not interested in whether these providers make money or not.  All of the policies will have been derived via an actuary and if they get the model wrong, well, that's just business.

But you should be interested in how they go about making their money; their procedure, inspection regime, plans check, how they offset their risk by passing it onto your other professional designers.

 

If you can get a feel for that then it will inform you more when choosing a warranty provider. Check with your designers and see what they are offering in terms of their PI cover.  It's common for example for SE's Architects to offer 3 or 5 years cover. If ProteK turn round and say well we want ten out your Architect then you need to discuss that with them now and not wait until later. 

 

Your drainage field may well come under the warranty as not least it will need to be mentioned in the Health and Safety File that ProteK ask for so they can issue the insurance certificate, that your lender also needs.. The best advice I can give you is to nail this as soon as you can as if not it could cause you a lot of stress later. 

On 08/08/2025 at 07:42, flanagaj said:

All of the policies will have been derived via an actuary and if they get the model wrong, well, that's just business.

But it's also your business!  

[ToughButterCup]

12 hours ago, Gus Potter said:

But you should be interested in how they go about making their money; their procedure, inspection regime, plans check, how they offset their risk by passing it onto your other professional designers.

 

...

 

That's one of the consistent themes of our (any?) build - risk offsetting.

 

Entirely understandable when you're a contractor - but not when it's your own build. Every risk is owned by me. 

 

Problems are defined by what they are not - as much as what by they are, and what they may reasonably be thought to be.