Britain’s biggest housebuilders are facing a claim worth up to £4.5bn, brought on behalf of more than 700,000 people who bought a new-build home between 2015 and 2026. The case accuses the firms of swapping pricing and sales information rather than competing for buyers on their own terms.
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The claim names Barratt Redrow, Bellway, Berkeley Group, Persimmon, Taylor Wimpey, Vistry Group and Bloor Homes. Mark McLaren, who used to handle legal affairs for the consumer group Which?, is bringing the case with the law firms Geradin Partners and Hausfeld. The sums involved work out at roughly £3,100 to £6,200 for each household affected.
Why one claimant can act for 700,000 buyers
Ordinarily, a group claim in England and Wales runs on an opt-in basis: someone has to actively join a case before it covers them. Competition claims work differently. A case that turns on competition law can go to the Competition Appeal Tribunal on an opt-out footing, so it covers a whole class of buyers unless a member chooses to leave it. That is the route this claim needs, and the tribunal typically takes six to 12 months to decide whether to let it through.
What the claim rests on
Court filings allege that the housebuilders shared sensitive detail on prices, incentives to buyers and sales activity. The claim follows a Competition and Markets Authority inquiry into the sector. That inquiry turned up signs that firms had been passing around commercially sensitive figures touching what new homes cost. Seven housebuilders settled with the regulator last year. They agreed to stop sharing pricing data and to put £100m into affordable housing schemes across the UK’s four nations, without admitting wrongdoing. New-builds make up more than three-quarters of a residential construction market that Geradin Partners puts at about £88.6bn a year.
Shares in several of the housebuilders fell on the day the claim became public, with Persimmon down 2.6% and Barratt down 2.3%. McLaren argues buying a home is one of the biggest commitments most people make, and that anyone affected was “left out of pocket as a result.” Not everyone agrees the case will hold up. Anthony Codling, a housing analyst at RBC Capital Markets, counters that housebuilders are “price takers, not price setters,” competing against a much larger market in existing homes. He also points out that the CMA’s own inquiry stopped short of finding a breach of competition law.
What happens if the claim succeeds
In the United States, one federal court’s guidance sets out what a class action settlement has to show before a judge signs it off. That includes how much each claimant stands to recover, and how that compares with what the class might have won at trial. This claim has an earlier hurdle. It needs the Competition Appeal Tribunal’s approval before it can proceed at all.
