How developers and customer care teams can handle the defects period without losing buyers' trust.
The defects period — typically the first two years after legal completion — is one of the most commercially sensitive phases of any new build development. Buyers have just made the largest financial commitment of their lives and their tolerance for unresolved snagging issues, missed appointments, and poor communication is low. How you manage this period directly affects your reputation, your referral rate, and in some cases your legal exposure.
New build customer care during the defects period is not simply a matter of fixing things. It is a structured process of expectation management, triage, scheduling, and communication — running simultaneously across dozens or hundreds of plots. For property developers operating at volume, the operational demands are significant. This article sets out how to approach it professionally, and where specialist maintenance partners add real value.
Under the NHBC Buildmark warranty and the Consumer Code for Home Builders, developers have defined obligations during the defects liability period. But legal minimums are not a management framework. The practical reality is that you need a system capable of logging defects as they are reported, assigning responsibility (developer, subcontractor, or warranty provider), scheduling access with the occupier, carrying out the work to an acceptable standard, and closing the job with a record that it has been resolved.
That process sounds straightforward. It becomes complicated when you are managing it across a 200-plot development where completions were phased over 18 months, meaning defects periods do not run concurrently. Add in subcontractor availability, access coordination with working households, and the variability of what actually constitutes a defect versus fair wear and tear, and the administrative load becomes substantial.
The developers who handle this well tend to have two things in place: a dedicated customer care function that is separate from the sales team, and a reliable maintenance delivery partner who can respond consistently without needing hand-holding on every job.
Most buyer frustration during the defects period originates at handover, not during repairs. When buyers are not told clearly what the process is, what response times to expect, and what the difference is between a defect and a warranty claim, they fill the gaps themselves — usually pessimistically.
A well-structured handover pack should explain the defects reporting process in plain language, provide a single point of contact for customer care queries, set out realistic timescales for different categories of issue (emergency, urgent, routine), and clarify what is covered by the developer and what falls under the NHBC warranty. This does not eliminate complaints, but it reduces the volume of calls generated by confusion rather than genuine problems.
Publishing these categories in writing and sticking to them is the foundation of credible new build aftercare customer service.
No defects period passes without complaints. The question is whether your complaints process adds to the friction or resolves it. Managing customer complaints on new build developments requires a different mindset to general customer service — buyers are emotionally invested in their homes in a way that commercial clients are not, and they are often sharing their experiences with neighbours on the same development.
Acknowledge every complaint in writing within 24 hours. This does not mean the problem has been fixed — it means the buyer knows their issue has been received and is being dealt with. This single step reduces escalation rates considerably. A buyer who has heard nothing for three days is far more likely to contact the NHBC, the Consumer Code adjudication scheme, or their solicitor than one who received a response the following morning.
Track complaints at plot level and at development level. If the same defect type is appearing repeatedly — a particular roof detail, a specific subcontractor's plasterwork, a batch of faulty components — that is information your construction team needs. A reactive customer care function misses patterns. A properly managed one generates intelligence that improves future builds.
Even when a developer has the right intentions and a competent trade, the defects resolution process frequently breaks down at the point of access. Buyers are at work. They have children. They do not want to take another day off because the plumber did not turn up, or arrived without the right part. Failed appointments are one of the most common triggers for formal complaints and negative online reviews.
This is where your maintenance delivery partner's operational discipline matters as much as their technical competence. You need operatives who confirm appointments in advance, attend on time, carry sufficient materials to complete routine jobs in a single visit, and communicate proactively if there is a problem. That sounds basic. In practice, it is the thing that most separates a good maintenance contractor from a poor one.
For new build aftercare specifically, the contractor also needs to understand that they are representing your brand inside your buyers' homes. How they present themselves, how they leave the property, and whether they explain what they have done all contribute to the buyer's overall impression of the developer. A technically competent but unprofessional operative can undo months of careful relationship management.
Spreadsheets are not a defects management system. If your customer care team is tracking open jobs manually, you will inevitably have items that fall through the gaps — plots where a job was raised but never assigned, or was assigned but never completed, or was completed but never confirmed in writing to the buyer. Each of these gaps is a complaint waiting to happen.
Purpose-built defects management software exists for this market (Clixifix and SimPRO are commonly used in the UK housebuilding sector) and integrates reporting, scheduling, and buyer communication. The investment is modest relative to the cost of mismanaged complaints and adjudication claims. For smaller developers who cannot justify dedicated software, a well-structured CRM system with clear job status fields and automatic follow-up reminders is a minimum viable alternative.
Whatever system you use, the closure process matters as much as the logging process. A defect should not be closed until the buyer has confirmed the work is satisfactory. This confirmation does not need to be a formal sign-off — an email or text response confirming the issue has been resolved is sufficient. What it prevents is the situation where a contractor marks a job complete, the developer closes it, and the buyer reports it again three weeks later because the repair failed or was incomplete.
In smaller developer organisations, customer care is often absorbed into the site manager's role or handed to the sales team after completion. Neither works well. Site managers are focused on live construction activity. Sales teams are incentivised to close the next transaction, not manage the aftermath of the last one. New build defects resolution requires dedicated ownership.
A customer care manager or coordinator — even a part-time one on smaller schemes — should own the defects log, manage the contractor relationship, and be the named point of contact for buyers. They should have the authority to instruct repairs without referral to senior management for every decision, and they should report regularly on open defect volumes, average resolution times, and complaint rates.
For property developer customer care in Yorkshire and across the north of England, the capacity to manage this function in-house varies considerably by business size. Regional developers running multiple concurrent schemes often find that outsourcing the maintenance delivery component — while retaining the customer-facing coordination internally — gives them the best of both models.
A defect that recurs after repair is significantly more damaging than the original issue. It signals to the buyer that the repair was not taken seriously, and it doubles the access disruption. Repeat defects also indicate a quality control problem that you need to trace back to source — whether that is a specific subcontractor, a design detail, or a materials specification.
Your maintenance contractor should be expected to warrant their repair work. If a plumbing repair fails within a reasonable period, the cost of returning to fix it should not fall on you. Building this accountability into your contractor agreements is straightforward but is often overlooked, particularly when developers are using the same subcontractors for both construction and aftercare. Separating your aftercare delivery from your construction supply chain — using a dedicated maintenance contractor rather than calling back original trades — often produces better results and cleaner accountability.
Gebai provides new build aftercare services for property developers across Yorkshire and the wider north of England. We handle defects period repairs and snagging resolution as a managed service — attending properties, coordinating access, carrying out multi-trade repairs, and providing closure confirmation that feeds back into your defects management system.
Our operatives work directly with buyers in their homes and understand that the quality of that interaction reflects on the developer. We operate to defined response time standards, provide job updates without being chased, and carry adequate materials to complete routine defects in a single visit. Where specialist trades are required, we manage the subcontractor rather than passing that coordination burden back to your team.
We work with regional developers across the Yorkshire market as well as national developers with schemes in this region. We are also experienced in working alongside housing associations managing planned and reactive maintenance programmes, which means the operational disciplines required for volume defects management are embedded in how we work.
If you are managing a live development with an active defects period, or planning ahead for a scheme approaching completion, we are happy to discuss how a managed aftercare arrangement works in practice. Contact the Gebai team directly to talk through your requirements.
Gebai manages defects period repairs for developers across Yorkshire — handling access coordination, multi-trade repairs, and buyer communication so your customer care team can focus on relationships, not logistics. Get in touch to discuss your current or upcoming scheme.
We are always open to discussing new contracts, framework agreements and long-term partnerships with housing associations, developers and property managers.