ValuQ Property Glossary

New build and auction

Two corners of the market with rulebooks of their own: buying a home that does not exist yet, and buying one in a room full of rivals. The vocabulary of both.

35 terms · Last reviewed 24 July 2026.

Off-plan

Buying off-plan is committing to a new-build home before it is finished, or sometimes before it is started, from drawings and a show home.

The price is locked early, the product arrives later. Between the two sit build delays, mortgage offer expiries and a market that keeps moving either way.

Assignment of an off-plan contract

Assignment is selling your off-plan purchase contract to another buyer before the home completes, where the developer's contract allows it.

An investor-market device, often restricted or forbidden in standard contracts. Whether you can exit before completion is decided by the assignment clause, so read it before reserving.

Related: Off-plan

Reservation fee and agreement (new build)

A new-build reservation is paying a fee to take a plot off the market at an agreed price while contracts are prepared.

The reservation agreement sets the exchange deadline and what happens to the fee if you withdraw. Consumer codes require key terms, including cancellation rights, to be spelled out.

Reservation cooling-off

Reservation cooling-off is the buyer's right under the new homes consumer codes to cancel a reservation within the stated period and recover most of the fee.

Deductions for the developer's actual costs are permitted; forfeiting the whole fee is not. The reservation form itself must state the terms.

Plot and phase

A plot is an individual home's numbered site on a development, and a phase is the batch of plots built and released together.

Early phases price keener and live with construction longer; late phases pay more and move straight into a finished estate. Both are choices, not accidents.

Related: Off-plan

Show home

A show home is the developer's furnished, upgraded example plot, dressed to sell the development.

Expect the upgraded kitchen and the clever mirrors; your plot arrives at base specification unless the contract says otherwise. The paperwork, not the showroom, defines what you get.

Related: Base specification and extras

Base specification and extras

Base specification is what a new build includes as standard, with everything else, from flooring to sockets, sold as extras or upgrades.

Extras are priced at retail and negotiable, especially late in a phase. Get the full specification in writing; show homes are exhibitions, not inventories.

Practical completion

Practical completion is the builder's milestone that a home is finished enough to live in, triggering the countdown to legal completion.

Finished enough is doing real work in that sentence: snagging exists precisely because practical completion is not perfection.

Build complete

Build complete means construction of the home is finished and certified, ready for legal completion and move-in.

On off-plan purchases the gap between reservation and build complete is where timing risk lives, managed by the stop dates in the contract.

Completion on notice

Completion on notice is the off-plan mechanism where the buyer must complete within a set number of days after the developer serves notice that the home is ready.

Commonly around ten working days, whenever that lands. It is why off-plan buyers keep mortgage offers alive and solicitors briefed: the completion date belongs to the builder's programme, not your calendar.

Long-stop date

The long-stop date is the contractual final deadline for the developer to finish the home, after which the buyer can walk away with their deposit.

The buyer's ultimate protection against a stalled site. Check it exists and check it is dated: an off-plan contract without a realistic long-stop is an open-ended promise.

Related: Short-stop date, Off-plan

Short-stop date

The short-stop date is the developer's target completion window stated in the contract, ahead of the binding long-stop date.

An estimate with consequences attached to the long-stop, not to itself. Plan removals around notice served, never around the short-stop.

Snagging and snagging list

Snagging is identifying the defects and unfinished details in a new build, listed for the developer to fix.

Paint, sealant, doors, scratches: individually small, collectively the difference between finished and finished properly. The two-year builder warranty period is the formal backstop for reported defects.

Defects liability period

Also known as: builder warranty period

The defects liability period is the initial warranty phase, typically two years, when the builder must fix defects in a new home.

Report everything in writing and keep the trail. After it, the structural warranty takes over for major issues only, so year two is the deadline that matters for the small stuff.

NHBC Buildmark

NHBC Buildmark is the most common new-home warranty, pairing the builder's two-year defects duty with structural cover to year ten.

It also protects deposits if the builder fails pre-completion. Years three to ten cover major structural failure, not wear, condensation or the dishwasher.

Structural warranty

Also known as: ICW, LABC Warranty, Premier Guarantee

A structural warranty is the ten-year insurance policy behind a new build, from NHBC or an equivalent provider such as LABC Warranty, Premier Guarantee or ICW.

Lenders require one they recognise before lending on a new home. The certificate is a sale document for the next decade: file it with the deeds.

Related: NHBC Buildmark

New Homes Quality Code

The New Homes Quality Code is the consumer code registered developers follow, backed by an ombudsman for new-build complaints.

It governs sales practices, reservation terms and after-sales service. Which code and ombudsman covers your developer is a pre-reservation question worth asking.

Related: Reservation cooling-off

UK Finance disclosure form

Also known as: CML disclosure form

The UK Finance disclosure form is the developer's declaration to the buyer's lender of every incentive attached to a new-build sale.

Cashback, paid stamp duty and upgrades all reduce the true price, and the lender values accordingly. Undeclared incentives are mortgage fraud territory: everything goes on the form.

Related: Developer incentives

Part exchange

Also known as: PX

Part exchange is a developer buying your existing home as payment toward one of their new builds, removing your chain entirely.

Certainty and speed, priced in: the developer's offer typically sits below open-market value. Compare the discount against months saved and sale risk removed, with real numbers on both sides.

Related: Chain-free / no onward chain

Developer incentives

Developer incentives are the extras offered to close a new-build sale: paid stamp duty, cashback, upgrades, or fees covered.

All must be disclosed to your lender, and all are negotiable, especially near a builder's year-end. Incentives are margin the developer expected to spend; collect yours deliberately.

First Homes scheme

First Homes is the English scheme selling selected new builds to eligible first-time buyers at 30% to 50% below market value, with the discount locked in for future resales.

Income caps of £80,000, or £90,000 in London, apply, and councils can add local or key-worker priority. The discount never expires: you resell the same percentage below the market to the next eligible buyer.

Low-deposit new-build schemes

Also known as: Deposit Unlock

Low-deposit new-build schemes let buyers purchase new homes with around 5% down, backed by developer or insurer support behind the lender.

The best known, Deposit Unlock, closed to new completions in April 2026, with existing offers honoured. Developer and lender tie-ups continue to appear and retire; what exists this month is a question for a broker.

Help to Buy equity loan redemption

Help to Buy redemption is repaying the government's equity loan when you sell or remortgage, at the original percentage of the property's value today, not the sum borrowed.

A 20% loan on a home that rose in value costs 20% of the new value to repay, established by a RICS valuation through the scheme administrator. Start the process early: it has its own paperwork, fees and clock, and completion cannot happen around it.

Section 106 obligations

Section 106 obligations are the planning commitments developers make to councils, funding affordable housing, roads or schools as the price of permission.

For buyers they surface as resale restrictions on some affordable plots and as the answer to what will be built around you. The obligations bind the land they touch.

Estate management fees on new estates

Estate management fees are the annual charges new-estate homeowners pay for unadopted shared spaces, covered in full in the leasehold chapter as estate charges.

On a new estate, ask three questions before reserving: what is the charge, who controls the manager, and will the roads be adopted.

Traditional auction

Also known as: unconditional auction

A traditional auction sells a property with contracts exchanging the moment the hammer falls, the buyer paying a deposit that day and completing within the stated period, commonly 28 days.

Binding means binding: finance, legal pack review and survey all happen before the room, not after it. The certainty cuts both ways and is priced accordingly.

Related: Legal pack, Auction deposit

Modern method of auction

Also known as: conditional auction, MMoA

The modern method of auction sells online with the winning bidder paying a reservation fee for an exclusive period, commonly 56 days, to exchange and complete.

The longer runway admits mortgage buyers, and the reservation fee, often thousands of pounds on top of the price, is typically non-refundable and separate from it. Factor the fee into the true price before bidding, not after winning.

What to watch: Read whether the fee counts toward the purchase price and what happens if your mortgage falls through inside the period. Bidders who skip that paragraph fund the ones who read it.

Reserve price

The reserve price is the confidential minimum a seller will accept at auction, below which the property will not sell.

Set with the auctioneer and never disclosed, though rules keep it within a margin of the guide. Bidding that stalls under the reserve ends in withdrawal, not a bargain.

Related: Guide price (auction)

Guide price (auction)

An auction guide price is the advertised indication of where bidding is expected to start, set close to the confidential reserve.

Guides are marketing as well as information: low guides fill rooms. Budget from comparable sold prices, treat the guide as a doorway, and decide your ceiling before the bidding decides it for you.

Related: Reserve price

Legal pack

The legal pack is the pre-prepared bundle of title, searches, conditions and replies published for an auction lot before the sale.

Auction buyers get their due diligence upfront instead of afterwards, and special conditions in the pack can load extra costs onto the winner. A solicitor's read of the pack before bidding is the cheapest insurance in the room.

Auction addendum

The addendum is the sheet of late changes and corrections to auction particulars and legal packs, published up to the moment of sale.

Bidders are bound by it whether or not they read it. Check it on the day; that is where the interesting sentences move to.

Related: Legal pack

Auction deposit

The auction deposit is the sum, typically 10% of the price, paid immediately when the hammer falls at a traditional auction.

Cleared funds and ID must be ready before bidding. Failing to complete afterwards forfeits it, plus liability for the seller's losses beyond it.

Buyer's premium

A buyer's premium is a fee some auctions charge the winning bidder on top of the hammer price.

Alongside reservation fees and administration charges, it belongs in your bid maths from the start. The catalogue's fee section is where the true cost of winning hides.

Related: Modern method of auction

Auction completion timescales

Also known as: 28 days, 56 days

Auction completion timescales are the fixed periods to finish the purchase: commonly 28 days from a traditional auction and 56 from the modern method.

The clock starts at the auction, not at your convenience. Finance that cannot land inside the window means bridging costs or a lost deposit, which is why auction finance is its own industry.

Lot

A lot is a single property or parcel offered at auction, numbered in the catalogue.

Lots can be withdrawn before sale, sold prior, or unsold on the day and available after. Ask the auctioneer about prior offers; the room is not the only door in.

Related: Guide price (auction)

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