THE booming Scottish housing market means there is more emphasis on quality, according to Global, a fast growing supplier of latent defects warranties for new homes.
In anticipation of growing demand, Global revealed it is increasing its surveying and business development teams to work more closely with Scottish builders and developers to help them improve all aspects of the build process, delivery times and – most importantly – to significantly reduce the cost of snagging and other types of avoidable repairs.
“We believe that Scotland will quickly return to pre-pandemic levels and as we all know there is desperate need for new homes in the country and all other parts of the UK,” said Jim Edwards, commercial director for Global Home Warranties. “Scotland in particular is set for rapid growth in all sectors, private and public.
“We also expect to see good growth in affordable homes. This is why we are increasing our team in Scotland as part of our growing nationwide network of surveyors and building professionals, so that we can work more closely with developers to ensure that we can get these new homes to market as quickly as possible and to the highest quality.”
The new Scottish team will be headed up by Andrew Gunning, who has also been promoted to the new role of UK head of retail sales. Andrew was previously a client manager with Global and headed up the firm’s top performing region.
Business development executive, Bruce Reid, joins Andrew in the expanding Scottish team. Global said Bruce has extensive experience in the construction industry as well as experience working in the structural warranty insurance market.
Bringing additional surveyor support for the Scottish office is Paul McFadden, who has also joined the 12-strong national team. Paul started his career in the construction industry as a bricklayer before completing his degree in construction management. Prior to joining the Global team, he was site manager for a Scottish housebuilder.
Global is one of the market leaders for “A” rated, structural warranty insurance for residential, mixed-use, commercial and social housing projects across the UK. The firm also arranges a variety of specialist bonds and said it has built an ‘enviable reputation’ for helping to save housebuilders money by identifying defects at the construction stage thanks to a ‘rigorous’ inspection regime instigated at every stage of the build process.
Andrew Gunning, head of retail sales for Global Home Warranties, explained, “It is like having another layer of quality control. We provide an intensive multi-stage inspection process which means we can work closely with contractors to ensure that our survey teams are available at every major stage of the build process and this is helping to reduce costly repairs and snagging.
“By working this closely with contractors the build process is not delayed in any way and more importantly we can ensure that everything is done to the highest possible standard resulting in fewer repairs later on. It is all about getting it right first time. Some warranty suppliers fail to provide such an inspection process, but we believe that this is just false economy.
“When we issue a latent defects warranty, we know to the best of our professional ability that we have eliminated where humanly possible all risk to the home owner and the insurer.”
