Customer Care
Our aim is to provide world-class service for all our customers. The Charter sets out our commitment to excellence. It provides a clear guide to the procedures we will follow and the information we will provide as you go through the home-buying process.
Our reputation is very valuable to us and it is based on the quality of our customer service as well as that of our homes. Our staff fully understand their responsibilities in their dealings with you. We hope customers will read and take the Charter seriously, because it’s something we take very seriously ourselves.
Outlined below is DCANS Properties’ Customer Care Charter, which covers how we go about making sure there aren’t any hitches along the way, but in the event of an issue, how we will rectify it as quickly as possible.
WHEN YOU RESERVE
We will give you all the detailed pre-contract information you need to make an informed decision about buying your new home. This will include detailed pricing information including the list price, any deductions or pre-payments and service charge, plus the cost of any extras. If required, we will help you appoint your own professional legal advisor to carry out the legal formalities of buying the property and to represent your interests.
We’ll work through any questions you may have, highlight all the options and choices for your consideration, and outline the typical timescales involved in being able to exchange contracts and complete the purchase of your dream home.
Our marketing and advertising will be clear and truthful and our contract of sale terms will be clear and fair. We will make clear to you your cancellation rights. We will also explain how we protect your financial deposit. If we receive other pre-payments from you we will also tell you how we will look after them. We are committed to clarity and honesty in marketing and advertising. All our promotional material will comply with the relevant laws and codes of practice, and none of the information or publicity material we issue will ever be intentionally misleading.
We will keep you updated with reliable information about the timing of construction, legal completion and handover of the property. We will let you know about health and safety precautions that we and you must take before visiting a development site and, where appropriate, advise you on health and safety issues.
At every stage, we will provide you with a contact at DCANS Properties who will deal with your queries or concerns. We promise to answer your questions as fully and as promptly as we can. We promise also to give you full details of any choices or options available, and allow you time to consider them.
Once you have reserved a home we provide the following:
- Details of the home including land and communal areas, location, development size and layout, demarcation and boundary details
- A sketch layout plan with approximate room sizes shown
- Summary details of the type of construction of your home
- Fixtures and fittings to be included
- Any choices and options where available
- Kitchen and bathroom layouts
- Summary of the external works and layouts
- Details of things that may not be finished before you buy the property, such as road surfaces, footpaths or landscaping
WHEN YOUR NEW HOME IS READY
We’ll ask you to join us at your new home for a thorough inspection, where we’ll take you through the features, fittings and demonstrate how the appliances and services work. We will also carefully examine all the finishes with you to ensure your new home is completed to the highest standard.
We will give you reliable information about the independent third party warranties provided with your new home and any other guarantees and warranties from which you may benefit. We will tell you about our procedures for dealing with customer complaints, including the availability of any services that can help you resolve issues over warranties.
We will co-operate with any appropriately qualified professional advisors you may appoint in the unlikely eventually of any disputes. We will actively listen to you, ask for feedback and strive to continually improve our processes and procedures to benefit all our customers.
1 YEAR PEACE OF MIND GUARANTEE
All our homes benefit from a 1-year Warranty or similar. This is included in the purchase price of the property. We will give you clear information about what this covers, and about any other guarantees or warranties which apply to your new home and its fittings. A 1-year Warranty guarantees that DCANS Properties will resolve any build problems with your new home for up to two years after completion. It also guarantees the property structurally for a further eight years. If you have any questions about the warranty cover please refer to your warranty booklet.
All defects and/or maintenance must be reported to our after sales team in writing and by telephone for urgent calls. There is a ‘what to do if you have a problem with your new home’ form in your hand over pack for any such problems. Our normal response time for non urgent problems is 7 – 21 days and urgent is 24 hours. All urgent defects are leaks, electrical heating etc. For settlement cracking, we advise to wait 12+ months for drying out.
OUR CUSTOMER CARE COMMITMENT
Our commitment to you doesn’t end when you move in. We expect your new home to be free from problems, but if the unexpected does happen we have clear guidelines covering after-sales care and emergency services throughout the warranty period. We will explain these to you clearly and make sure that you know who to contact in the event of a problem.
In the first instance you should contact our Customer Care department who will do their utmost to resolve the problem. If the issue cannot be solved by our Customer Care team, your query will be referred onto the Customer Care Manager and then onto a relevant Director. Only if the problem remains unresolved, will it be taken up by the Regional Managing Director.
Our general service delivery standards are:
* Emergencies – we aim to have someone in your home within four hours to put an end to the emergency situation
* Standard items (labour only) we expect to complete within 10 working days
* Where replacement parts are required, we expect to complete the job within 20 working days