Persimmon announces ‘home faults’ deferred payments
Housebuilder Persimmon has launched a plan to improve customer care, enabling homebuyers to withhold payments until their houses are fault-free.
The initiative will allow buyers’ solicitors to withhold 1.5% of the property’s value until any faults in the home are resolved. Persimmon said at current selling prices this would be approximately £3,600 per home.
The announcement comes a month after the housebuilder reported more than £1bn in profits, amid reports from The Times over fears of build quality threatening its Help to Buy contract.
Housebuilder Persimmon has launched a plan to improve customer care, enabling homebuyers to withhold payments until their houses are fault-free.
The initiative will allow buyers’ solicitors to withhold 1.5% of the property’s value until any faults in the home are resolved. Persimmon said at current selling prices this would be approximately £3,600 per home.
The announcement comes a month after the housebuilder reported more than £1bn in profits, amid reports from The Times over fears of build quality threatening its Help to Buy contract.
Persimmon said it was making large investments in customer care resources, including IT and digital tools.
It expects the new retention plan to be fully in place by the end of June.
In today’s announcement, chief executive Dave Jenkinson said: Persimmon is listening hard to all of its stakeholders and we hear the message that we need to continue to raise our game in customer care.
“Moving into a new home should be a positive experience enhanced by all the benefits of a new build that is designed for modern living. We are determined that the experience is not overshadowed by teething problems and providing a homebuyer’s retention is an important step towards achieving this.”
Roger Devlin, Persimmon’s chairman, said: “This is a first among the UK’s large housebuilders and I hope will lead the way in change across the sector. This move, and the urgency with which we will introduce it, is a clear and unambiguous signal of cultural and operational change at Persimmon, putting customer care at the very centre of the business.”
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