Persimmon extends customer retention period to a week

Persimmon has announced it will extend the length of time customers can check for faults in their new homes from a day to the first week of occupation.

Following a barrage of complaints from customers about the quality of their new homes the housebuilder announced in March it would offer buyers the chance to hold back 1.5% of the purchase price of their new home until faults identified on the day they moved in had been rectified.

At the time chief executive Dave Jenkinson admitted the group had to “raise its game” over the issue of snags and problems with newly-built homes.

The scheme had been due to start this month but in a trading update published yesterday, the group said it would extend this from a day to the first week of occupation.

Jenkinson said that since the initial announcement in March the firm had been in discussions with stakeholders and had decided to extend the retention “to cover faults identified in the first week after moving in, not just by the moving in day itself”.

Chairman Roger Devlin has already ordered an independent review of its customer care provision – which is being headed by the QC representing survivors and victims of the Grenfell Tower fire – which the firm has promised to make public when it publishes Stephanie Barwise’s findings later this year.

Ahead of its half-year results being published next month, Persimmon said it anticipated total turnover the first six months of 2019 coming in at around £1.75bn, down 4.5%.

New housing legal completion volumes of 7,584 new homes were down 6%, at an average selling price of £216,950, up 0.5%.

Persimmon said it expected its underlying housing operating margin for the 2018 full year of 30.8%.

The group’s results for the six months to 30 June 2019 will be published on 20 August.