Abstract
The objective of the study reported herein, continued from part 4, is to examine the characteristics of the registration system, insurance system and arbitration one in the National House-Building Council scheme. The principal characteristics of the NHBC scheme are summerised as follows ; 1) On the registration system, a) the registration categories are composed of the house-builder registration and the developer one. The registered developer must construct dwellings for sale, on the contructs between registered builders. b) the investigation of applicants is made into the financial status and the technical standards. c) the registation is now normally offered subject to special conditions in the case of new companies or where the applicant is poor in the financial status or sub-standard in the construction technique. d) the house-builder or developer imposed the special conditions is admitted only as a probationer, who is prevented to use the NHBC publicity but can sale particular dwellings with the benefit of the scheme. e) the special conditions consist of many types of guarantee to NHBC for the payment of remedial works or in case of their defavlt f) the probationers in the new register have rapidly increased after 1969 when the building societies association decided that no building society lends to dwellings without the protection by the NHBC scheme. 2) On the insurance system a) the insurance covers the undertakings of the NHBC which are composed of the compensation of the purchaser's loss caused by the default of the registered vendor in/before the initial guarantee period (two year scheme), and the remedial works of the major structural defects appearing after the initial guarantee period before the expiration of the tenth year (ten year scheme). b) the insurance consists of the surety bond for the two year scheme and the property insurance for the ten year scheme. c) the top up cover system is introduced as a countermeasure against the inflation of repair cost. d) the premium rate in proportion to the house price is about 0.13 % for the basic insurance and about 0.17 % for the top up cover. e) the limitation of the payment by the insurance is £ 20,000 for one dwelling and £ 500,000 for one registered vendor. 3) On the dispute treatment system, a) the NHBC provids the conciliation service, which is purely voluntarly but very effective. The 99 % of coplaints are settled by the conciliation service of the NHBC. b) if the conciliation failed, the dispute on the purchaser's agreement must be, in the general case, referred to the arbitration on the agreement and exceptionally to the court.
