Persimmon has revealed plans to extend a so-called ‘retentions’ scheme, allowing homebuyers to withhold a proportion of the cost of their home via their solicitor if they discover faults in the build.
The housebuilder initially announced the plan in March this year in response to criticisms over quality, and said the idea would “assure high finish standards”.
It emerged in a financial statement from the company release today that the scheme will begin in July and has been extended to allow customers to identify faults during the first week of moving in. Initially, it had been planned that homebuyers would only be able to identify faults on the day of moving itself in order to take advantage of the scheme but it has made the change after “feedback from our stakeholders”.
Persimmon said it would depend on home buyers’ mortgage lender as to whether or not they would be able to take up the scheme, which allows them to withhold up to 1.5% of the value of the home.
A further update on how it has progressed will be provided when Persimmon publishes its half-year results in August.
The news came as Persimmon revealed a drop in revenue for the first half of the year to 30 June to £1.75bn (down from £1.84bn in 2018).
‘Focus on quality’
It completed 7,584 homes during the period, down from 8,072 in the same period before, which it said reflected “the outcome of our customer service initiatives”. The average selling price was £216,950, up from £215,813 in the same period in 2018. A total of 52% of all private sales in the first hald of this year were to first time buyers.
Dave Jenkinson, group chief executive, said: “I am pleased that there are some clear early signs that our focus on increasing the quality and service delivered to our customers is beginning to bear fruit, with some encouraging improvements being made right across the business. Although we are still in the early days of our improvement plans our customer satisfaction rating, as measured by the HBF, has increased during the period.
“Our progress on customer service shows that Persimmon is listening carefully to all stakeholders and making the changes needed to position the business for the future, while maintaining a robust trading performance.”
