Settling into your new home

After legally completing there are a few little tasks you’ll need to carry out to make sure moving into your new home is as carefree and enjoyable as it should be.

• Please check you have all the necessary keys to your home
• Along with your sales adviser, take all meter readings to ensure there’s a clear handover of responsibility
• Building a home is a big project and occasionally there can be some minor issues, from a scratched door to a cracked tile. So please check for any damage within the first 7 days and report it immediately to your New Home Customer Care team.

We realise with all the excitement of moving in, unpacking and beginning to enjoy your new home, the first couple of days can be quite hectic.

For that reason, we will be on hand over the first week to help you settle in.

• You can expect a visit from your sales adviser within the first 24 hours to check all is well. If you’ve moved in on a Friday this may not happen until Monday
• We ask that any damage be reported no later than 7 days after legal completion. After this time it may be impossible to determine who caused it
• After 7 days the site manager will visit, which is the opportunity to raise any snags or minor defects you have spotted.

Your initial meter readings for all services will be taken when you move into your new home and recorded on the Customer Acceptance Certificate. You should receive your first bill within the first three months following legal completion. If you do not receive a utility bill within three months, please contact your utility supplier, details of which can be found in the welcome pack you received when you moved in. You will be responsible for all utility charges from legal completion. Even if your first bill does not arrive during the first three months, remember to budget for these costs.

Your local authority determines your council tax band, you can find out more information for your home on the government's website.

All of your developments are served by an Ultrafast Fibre network. On occasion, it may not be possible to connect telephone or broadband services to the development and to individual properties in time for homeowners moving in. This is an issue for new homes and construction projects across the UK.

Before legal completion your sales adviser should be able to confirm the current status of your telephone and broadband and whether it will be connected.

A few points to bear in mind:

• These issues are not always due to problems with the network provider
• While the connection for telephone/broadband is provided by a network provider, customers are free to choose their own broadband and telephone service provider. Connection issues can sometimes be due to the service provider and not the network provider.
• Unfortunately, we can’t connect sites to the telephone network ourselves. Only the network provider can do this.
• To assist our customers we’re pressing the network provider for the timely connection of services to individual sites. We are also continuing to take the issue up at a national level.

In the first instance, always contact your service provider who will be able to diagnose where the problem lies.