House Extension Warranty - do they exist and what are they.

There really is not a separately purchased house extension warranty that you can purchase for added protection of things going wrong on site or your builders failure or non-performance.

Some builders belong to professional trade bodies that may offer an insurance backed warranty with a third party insurer & this does try to address the worries and fears of some home owners.  However, as these are insurance backed products there is a separate charge of around 6% of the contract value of the house extension scheme.

The Federation of Master Builders used to offer such a warranty that was mainly focussed on your builders failure to finish off the works where magically another builder would be engaged as a white knight when you complained to finish off the works without fuss or delay.

Well, living in the real world it never really happened like that and many homeowners who claimed on this added warranty scheme failed to sing is praises in the way that it was perhaps sold - I think that is the storey of all insurance isn't it?

This house extension insurance did not cover poor quality workmanship or building failures which is probably going to be the more common complaint so quite how it worked for the home owner is still to be proven.

Some house extension builders will provide a written guarantee on their work and installations but again, if they are a transient limited company that seems to be a new title every 3 years its value for the homeowner remains in doubt.

There appear to be plenty of warranty schemes for the new homes market and even covering the self builder but the home extension market seems very much un-catered for.

The NHBC offer a limited structural warranty but only for new homes as far as I can tell.  How many NHBC builders complete house extensions as their main working profession? Not many I would suspect.  Some registered NHBC builders come into the home extension market as a side line or when the new house build market gets tight.

All in all your best warranty protection is probably completing your own due diligence before selecting your final builder.  If they belong to some form of trade body then at least they will have some form of code of conduct and the builder will be mindful of complaints and any disciplinary proceeding which could see him ejected from the body that could affect their future marketing of their business.