Your Home

We hope you love your new home as much as we loved creating it. Here you will find some useful information about your new home and some handy tips to help you settle in.

Quality

Your home is an individually built hand crafted product and during the construction of your new home every effort has been taken to ensure the highest level of quality standards have been achieved.

One Year Rectification Period

Your home has a one year defect warranty. During the first year after the home is completed, if any minor defects arise the builder will repair them. This is called the Rectification Period. Please see the “Defects and Repairs” section for more information.

End of Rectification Period Inspections

At the end of the rectification liability period, Great Places will make arrangements with you to visit your home and carry out an inspection with the contractor. This is your opportunity to raise any defects, shrinkage cracks and nail pops that have arisen during the first year. The contractor will make an appointment to attend your property to repair any defect items.

Please note that after the Rectification liability period has expired, all repairs will be completed by Great Places.

Alterations

No alterations are to be made to your home without the consent of Great Places. Alterations may adversely effect the validity of warranties during the defect liability period. For further advice please contact either The Hub on 0300 123 1966 or at www.greatplaces.org.uk/customers/ or speak to your Neighbourhood Services Manager.

We recommend that you do not redecorate within the first year as the property needs time to dry out and the contractor will not attend to defects where redecoration has taken place.

Fixings to walls

Heavy items such as televisions and media units should not be fixed to walls. When fixing light items to walls such as pictures and mirrors please follow these guidelines:

  • Never drill or fix into the wall directly above, below or in line with sockets, light switches and radiator pipes;
  • Avoid fixings within 150mm of corners and tops of walls, these are safe zones;
  • With stud partition walls, consider accessories on the reverse side of the wall in the adjoining room;
  • If fixing directly to a brick or block wall then Rawl type plugs are the simplest solution
  • Fixings into stud walls should be avoided where possible. If you have no choice but to fix to a stud wall you should use either a self drive plug; spring toggle fixing or a hollow wall anchor.

Home insurance

Your home is covered under the Great Places Building insurance policy. However, you will need to purchase contents insurance to cover you against loss, theft or damage to your personal and home possessions.

We work with a reputable insurance company to offer home contents insurance that can be paid in weekly instalments, at very competitive rates. Unlike some insurance policies, and exclusively for Great Places customers, there are no excesses – so nothing to pay in the event of a claim.

The policy is underwritten by a reputatable insurance company.

How you can apply:

  • Visit our Website www.greatplaces.org.uk
  • Contact the administrators on 01962 844454

Appliances

Appliances are not provided by Great Places.

You must ensure that the appliance you install are fitted by a qualified tradesperson. Great Places are not responsible for installation of any issues/defects caused by installation or faulty products.

Reminder: You will need to register your new appliance with the warranty provider as soon as possible after purchase.

Loft space

You do not have access to the loft space. There are a number of reasons for this:

  • The loft is a ventilated space which hasn’t been designed for storage or boarding. In modern homes the amount of insulation installed in loft spaces prevents installing flooring to the loft. This is to avoid compressing the insulation and reducing how effectively your home stays warm. There are often ventilation ducts in this space too which if compressed/ trapped by loft boards may cause the ventilation system to be ineffective.
  • If the loft is used for storage, it makes it difficult for our operatives to gain safe access in order to carry out any necessary work.
  • To minimise health and safety risks associated with accessing a space which isn’t designed to be occupied. The roof structure at ceiling level is not designed to support significant weight – it is not the same as a floor and can only support the weight of the ceiling to the rooms below and a small additional weight. This is why we do not provide loft boarding.