Four years later, and after exhaustive self-analysis, a string of national housebuilders have adopted customer-focused cultures that will make them unrecognisable to the industry of the early 1990s - even their peers today. For example, rushing buyers to complete just to flatter financial results is being systematically designed out: now buyer "pre-delivery inspections" make ownership of a half-finished home an impossibility.
It is impossible to apportion how much change might be due to Lorentzen's NANHO turning the gap between consumer expectations and the industry's skillbase into a weekly comedy of manners acted out on TV and in the papers. The 56-year-old ex-musician, ex-mechanical engineer funds NANHO himself and from his study he dispenses at no charge punishingly well-researched advice to "at least 50" fresh complainants every week. Many are referred by the Citizens Advice Bureau - NANHO is listed at every one - and his one-man-one-telephone-line service is "swamped" after each NANHO-sourced housing casualty appears on TV or in the papers.
But Lorentzen doesn't just throw media brickbats. NANHO's championing of angry homebuyers is done mostly without trial by Watchdog, as more than 90% of complaints NANHO advises on want redress but no publicity: compensation and buy-backs are mostly legally gagged.
Lorentzen is discreet about other contributions, refusing to enlarge on links with DETR or with housebuilders. That Beazer's Chief Executive Dennis Webb credits Lorentzen for helping shape its award-winning customer care package, that Lorentzen is a DETR consultee or that NANHO is highlighted in Zurich's warranty document for consumer advice gives the lie to those who portray him as a self-interested obsessive. He has even alerted builders to site materials being sold off the back of a lorry.
Underestimating Lorentzen's grasp of industry practice would be foolish. But that is what NHBC did. Lorentzen's response has been to push every arguable aspect of NHBC under the noses of the DETR and DTI, both Houses of Parliament, the Office for Fair Trading, the Advertising Standards Authority, the Association of British Insurers and the Insurance Ombudsman, the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, BBC Radio, BBC Television, Channel 4 ... As the clamour rose and the professions showed sympathy, construction minister Nick Raynsford responded by threatening NHBC that he would legislate if Amersham's own strategic review didn't deliver.
From 1 April most of NHBC's two-year strategic review will be in place. Several changes directly address some of Lorentzen's specific criticisms, for example:
NANHO’s commitment is to getting a satisfactory conclusion for the homebuyer. When the housebuilder is willing to effect that, there will be absolutely no need for NANHO
- the warranty's two-year Initial Guarantee Period now runs from when the customer legally completes, not from final build inspection (buyers' IGP cover often lapsed well before two years' occupation);
- housebuyers are told to seek Buildmark documents from the builder's solicitor. An NHBC number is given to ring if they don't appear (NHBC concurs 30% of warranty documents failed to be handed over).
- Conciliation speeds up and becomes Resolution. Where it once drove unresolved disputes to NHBC-defined arbitration, now NHBC will ease access to processes not under its aegis, such as at the Association of British Insurers, even alternative disputes resolution.
This last change has special resonance to Lorentzen whose introduction to NHBC came through a dispute over the Barratt house he bought in 1992. The dispute didn't so much end as run out of track when an arbitration paid out his claim in part. He is phlegmatically critical of the process.
"NANHO gives the opportunity to those who have bought substandard homes to place their plight outside procedures forced on them by those in the construction industry who understand best how to play them, and to make that plight a matter of public inquiry," says Lorentzen, who monopolises conversation with sharply-crafted, well-worn statements. In between come disgusted outbursts: "Do you know how these bloody builders hide their scams? They turn up and say, 'Mr Birkbeck, if you make these matters public, not only will you devalue your property but you will devalue the property of your neighbours. Now that will make you very popular, won't it?'"
The law of the new-build industry is caveat emptor. And so should they be
Lorentzen's prickly critiques return again and again to decoupling those building and selling homes from those shaping buyer protection, especially in the provision of build warranties. "The obvious principle applied to the purchase of any insurance policy is that those selecting a policy and paying for it are the ones seeking protection from it. Uniquely in the case of a new home warranty, the builders buy it and are the only ones with full knowledge of policy limitations. Owners don't even get to see documentation until after purchase." Which brings him to a maxim. "The law of the new-build industry is caveat emptor. And so should they be."
Heart of the argument
Lorentzen's core argument is that where any industry polices itself to minimum standards chosen to be achievable by all, quality cannot meet buyers' expectations. "The NHBC keeps saying the home is a hand-built product assembled in all weather as though that were reason to accept poor quality. Anyway, for every case of mortar washed out by rain there are hundreds of appalling cavity construction."
So he rejects NHBC's consumer panel set up last September. "One question to you all: why should NHBC need panels with representation from all these other consumer-friendly organisations? Zurich doesn't have any," he snaps.
His solution is clean-slate intervention, a "truly independent regulator not scared to name and shame", even fine - "Where there is no penalty, there is no pain."
He barely concedes that individual companies will for reason of business strategy deliver a better product and service than could be legislated for. But tell him that Wimpey dock bonuses for directors whose regions score poorly for customer satisfaction, and he smiles, adding that "nowadays [he] gets few complaints about Wimpey". Then he qualifies this optimistic interlude by pointing out that other household names supply him with caller traffic much greater than their market shares - he argues that the cowboy builder as sole trader is a smokescreen . "The industry's dependence on lowest price subcontract leads to shoddy workmanship."
Source
Building Homes
