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New build buyers need more protection |
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Wednesday, 29 August 2007 |
The Scottish Consumer Council has called on the UK Government to give buyers purchasing new build homes greater protection, saying consumers buying a loaf of bread have more rights than some homebuyers.
The Council’s chair, Douglas Sinclair, made the comments in response the Office of Fair Trading’s examination of the new home build market.
“We receive a steady stream of correspondence from people who move into new homes and then find they don’t have the rights they need when it comes to getting faults and snagging dealt with. And that’s when they manage to move in. Too often buyers are given a vague date for when the house will be ready and have little to fall back on when it isn’t. There is no justification for buyers being exempt from the normal legal protection just because they’re buying a new property,” he said.
In order to give new build buyers more protection, Sinclair called for new house sales to be brought under the Sale of Goods Act by Westminster.
Sinclair also attacked Scottish industry body Homes For Scotland, saying it was no longer fit to oversee self-regulation within the industry:
“The Scottish Consumer Council was content that Homes for Scotland could oversee self regulation of their sector but we aren’t any more. While a Code of Conduct was introduced last year, the fact that it had no independent scrutiny and has never been shared with the public, make it entirely meaningless.”
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 29 August 2007 )
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Holyrood news 
