Bovis Homes is to pay £7m to repair poorly built new homes sold to customers, raising fresh questions about the standards of new-build properties across the country and the regulation of the market.

More than half of the buyers of new homes have experienced major problems with their properties, according to research, which comes after Bovis Homes agreed to pay £7m compensation to customers for poorly built houses.

Housebuilder Bovis Homes offered customers up to £3,000 to move into incomplete homes before Christmas shortly before it issued a surprise profit warning to investors.

Fed-up customers joined the Bovis Homes Victims Group on Facebook. The 650-strong body plans to protest at Bovis’ HQ in Longfield, Kent.

Customers have told of how when they picked up the keys to their dream homes they discovered a string of issues and work unfinished – leading a housebuilder to apologise. A young couple finding their home was missing its oven and a mum having to make an 18-mile trip to do her washing are among a litany of complaints laid at Bovis Homes’s door.

Faults and repairs mean they are frequently without power and their garden is too dangerous to enter after being dug up twice because of drainage problems.