When we buy a new car, we pay close attention to the car's warranty, noting that, with regular oil changes and services, the automobile manufacturer will warrant it against material defects and faulty workmanship. And we note the time period the car is warranted for, knowing full well that, for instance, after 35,000 miles or two years, whichever comes first, we can make no further claims on many mechanical features.

But do we think of new homes with the same matter-of-factness that we reserve for new cars when it comes to warranties? It seems not. Although time was when new cars were hand made (assembly line or not), new homes are indeed still hand-made specimens, one of the few remnants left of that time-honored discipline. And we can't compute human mileage the way we can car mileage. It just boils down to owner care. Some homeowners (are these referred to as 'boring' types?) try to keep up with every detail of home maintenance to preserve their homes' pristine newness, inside and out. Others truly live in every corner of their home every minute they can, without concern to how prematurely worn the house will appear or whether it is indeed time to have major systems in their homes serviced or air conditioning filters changed.

New homebuilders often have elaborate networks of subcontractors and precisely worded agreements in place to deal with "service after the sale" on the dwellings they build. Some purchase outside indemnification warranties from firms specializing in these types of contracts with both the builder and the buyer. The builders who pay the extra dollars for these separate warranties claim that not every builder can purchase them; the builder must build their homes to a specifically described set of standards, or they would not qualify to be participants. This may be true, however, these outside warranties cost a considerable dollar amount per-house to the builder, with this figure no doubt buried somewhere within the sales price of the new home. (You can bet it's not taken off the bottom line).

Do homes with these types of warranties fare any better on homeowner satisfaction surveys than those with conventional builder warranties? The jury is out on that one. The outside warranty is an attractive selling feature for those builders purchasing them, however. The builder will claim that, even if they went out of business, the Warranty Company will be there, giving buyers peace of mind in the long run. The sad fact is, even warranty companies can go out of business (as is the case with my own less-than-ten-year old home), leaving the homeowner to search for the builder's warranty office when the builder may indeed have stopped building new homes in that area.

The traditional 1-10 or 2-10 builder warranties (the shorter periods for items and systems within the homes and the 10-year element for basic structural integrity issues) that accompany most new homes are limited warranties, but are not to be sneezed at. Some states and municipalities already have strict building codes in place, getting tougher every year. The various trades themselves (framers, roofers, electricians, plumbers, etc.), must be able to back up their own installations, and the products they use each come with their own warranties. As they say, when something is amiss, stuff usually rolls downhill. The builder hires the best tradesmen they can find for the budget they have set for themselves, and the rest is up to just how well each of these trades perform on a regular basis. Sub-contractors come and go, and oftentimes the builder is left with the task of remedying shoddy workmanship. That is why so many builders try to be extra careful about who they bring onto the job, inspecting their work every step of the way.

Now that we have somewhat addressed the builder side of things, what is the homeowner himself responsible for? A builder's customer service, or warranty representative can easily determine, after literally hundreds of visits to their own homes, the difference between material defect and installation and owner neglect, misuse, and lack of regular maintenance. The truth is, the homeowner is not "off the hook" during the new home warranty period. The routine maintenance of installed systems, surfaces, and other amenities contained within their new home falls squarely on the new home occupant's shoulders, with the builder's service representative on hand only in the cases of obvious and glaring mistakes, sub-standard installations, or emergencies.

Here, then, are some common scenarios found in many buyer/new home warranty department agendas that may help new homeowner see things in a different perspective:

Published: October 20, 1999

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A veteran of the real estate and homebuilding industries since 1986, Dena Kouremetis first joined Realty Times as a new homes writer in 1998. Since then, she has authored four books, written consumer columns on new homes issues for websites and newspapers all across the country, contributed to builder trade magazines, appeared as a guest expert on several radio shows and even created a ten-chapter podcast for LendingTree.com’s homebuilder website, iNest.com, now available on iTunes, entitled Uncharted Waters; Navigating the Purchase of a New Production Home. Kouremetis recently joined her local Folsom, CA Coldwell Banker office as a broker associate while continuing to write for the real estate industry. For the past three years, she has been training real estate agents for both the resale and new homes industries, putting her experience, research expertise and gift of expression to work to help others entering the business.