New builds and warranties
The brochure draws a porch this plot does not have. Which paper describes the building you are actually buying?
The paper that describes this plot, not the brochure picture of a porch the plot does not have. A sales brochure is marketing. It often shows a house type or an optional extra that was never built here. The building you are buying is the one on the ground, read with the contract plan, the specification for this plot and any written variations. The home survey describes the condition of what was there. It does not turn a drawn porch into a defect the warranty has accepted. NHBC describes Buildmark as a ten-year warranty and insurance product, and this survey has not opened a claim.
Last reviewed 24 October 2026. Written for buyers in England and Wales unless this answer says otherwise. No named surveyor has signed this page. It is general guidance, not a report on your house, and not legal advice.
What is the fuller explanation?
New-build marketing mixes elevations. A porch on a leaflet can be an extra this buyer did not buy. The legal description sits in the contract documents for the plot: plans, specification and written changes. If those papers include a porch and the entrance has none, that is a contract question. If they never included one, the brochure was only a picture. The survey can say the porch is absent. It cannot choose which document governs. Your solicitor compares the papers with the plot.
Give your solicitor the brochure page and the plot-specific plans together, and ask which one the contract uses. Do not ask the surveyor to declare a warranty breach because a leaflet showed a porch. The survey does not open a Buildmark claim and does not invent stages of cover. If the contract did promise a porch, the solicitor and the builder are the route. Buy the building the plot papers describe, and use the survey for the condition of that building, not of the drawing.
What should you ask your surveyor?
- Does the specification for this plot include a porch, or only the brochure?
- What does the survey say is actually present at the entrance?
- Are changes written down, or only remembered from a show house?
What are the typical next steps?
- Compare the plot specification and plans with the entrance you can stand in.
- Ask your solicitor which document the contract actually uses.
- Do not treat the brochure drawing as the building, or as a warranty claim already opened.
Costs vary with the building and with who you instruct. Where this page does not cite a published figure, ask the surveyor, a relevant specialist, or your solicitor for a written quote. Do not treat a forum average as the price.
Also asked about this
Can the show-house porch be treated as the specification?
Only if the contract says the show house forms the specification, which many contracts limit carefully. The survey has not read that clause for you. A porch on another plot is not automatically this plot's porch. Ask the solicitor. Do not photograph the show house and call it the house you are buying.
If the contract includes no porch, is the survey wrong to note the difference?
The survey can describe an entrance with no porch. That is a fact about the plot. It is not a finding that a porch was removed in error. Once the solicitor confirms the contract has none, the brochure stops describing the purchase. The report remains a description of the building, not of the leaflet.