Charles Church & Persimmon Homes

Tabby2

There hasn't been much on any website recently in regards to problems with Charles Church and Persimmon, do I take it that their customer service and build standards have improved?

dgtazzman

We rent a Persimmon built home, built in 2005-2006 and let's put it this way, if I had a tenner for every crack (mostly hairline, I must admit) that has appeared since it's been built, I'd be able to retire. Even in the last 3 years, while we've been there, more cracks have appeared.

Basically the build quality is far from the best, as is the insulation between us and the neighbors (mid-terrace) and all the inside walls seem pretty flimsy compared to places I've lived in before (I'm reluctant to drill holes for paintings etc. when me wife wants me to, as I fear the hole is going to end up 5 times the size of the drill bit).

I certainly have been put off looking at them for our purchase in the next year or so, even though they've just started a development just up the road from us in a rather good location. Also, they're pricing seems higher that some of the competition in our area, while I don't see the higher quality etc. to justify any markup.

Tabby2

Thanks for the feedback. We are looking at Charles Church in Northampton and the show home looks good but there are so many horror stories out their regarding Persimmon that I thought I'd test reaction before moving on anything.

Blondygirl

Very poor quality. I had one about 9 years ago & had loads of problems, never again. Charles Church are building opposit where my parents live & we saw them in the winter, frost & snow brick laying which is a big no no.

okborednow

I can't speak from having bought a persimmon home but we're looking to buy under help to buy and so have been doing the rounds of the showhomes in the developments in our area. We went to see a Persimmon show home and all i can say is yikes! We genuinely weren't looking for problems but saw at least 10 different snags in the ten minutes it took us to look round. Bear in mind the house in question sells for a minimum of 280K and surely the show home should be done up to the nines and absolutely perfect to encourage sales and convince buyers they're selling quality homes. We saw cracks in the plaster, the handle broken off the dishwasher, dishes in the sink and used teabags in the cupboards. There was also an extremely worrying buzzing noise coming from the electric panel. If they can't even be bothered to do the show homes properly what are the actual homes going to be like?

yorkshire_terrier_owner

I was looking at a Charles Church new build last year. Walked away because:
Customer service was shocking. Given that I was a potential customer, the sales office staff made me feel I was inconviencing them.
Property I was looking at was vastly overpriced, even for a new build and they would not negotiate.
Rooms sizes were just silly.

Charles Church seem to trade off their 'high quality' builds which didn't look to be any better than any other builder. Also have just watched them chuck a detached house up opposite my parents. Couldn't have taken less care over building it if they'd tried.

I ended up with a 60's build - more property for less money.

witchy1066

all I can say, is, I have more room in my caravan

HouseMoo

I bought Persimmon (detached house), moved in start of last month and at the moment all is good! Of course as with any new build, there were lots of little snags (mainly cosmetic - e.g. bumpy paintwork etc) but I have to commend their customer service on handling them! On reporting all the issues, I had a handyman assigned to my property for two days who brought in all the other trades, decorators / plumbers / kitchen supplier / electricians etc as needed and covered everything off my list! Since then with the few other issues I've had, the site manager has jumped on them straight away and fixed them very quickly. Time will tell if this level of service continues..

I guess it varies quite a bit site to site, but in my experience I've been impressed with their after-sales service (sales staff were friendly and quite knowledgeable too).

Yes, I too was worried before buying after reading all the horror stories, like seeing that they are only 4 star in the HBF / were on BBC watchdog last year etc. So I might just be lucky, so all I say I will finish with saying is: Do your research on the site you are buying from, and if you are happy with the quality of the house itself, then check over all the plans and planning reports before even making an offer (most of these should all be available on council planning websites).

- HouseMoo :www:

dgtazzman

Funny Tabby, we're in Northampton too, I guess you're talking about the Marina Gardens development. Didn't even think they had a show home yet, did notice they whacked a few houses up in under 2 months, so maybe one of those is this show home.

We live up the road behind what was the old hospital, which they've torn down to make this development. It's a good location, close to the motorway and Sixfields, yet not too busy around the area itself. I have noticed they haven't really gone very deep with digging up the area, looked to me like they only went down a foot, so God knows what's left under that from the old hospital grounds.

Also there were a few old houses on the grounds that had been condemned due to asbestos, I think they just tore those down too, without any extra measures for the asbestos, so remnants of that might be littered all over the grounds...

dumpallhere

yorkshire_terrier_owner wrote: »

Rooms sizes were just silly.

witchy1066 wrote: »

all I can say, is, I have more room in my caravan

+1

Floor area : price = over the top, unless they happen to be building your dream design. IMHO ..

caeler

I'm settling in to my second Charles church home (completed Dec 12). So far so good. I had a fair few snags but all minor stuff and a particularly efficient site manager got them all sorted within a few weeks which was amazing! Last month I put a couple more forward (items I hadn't noticed before) and action has been a lot slower but getting there, last one being sorted tomorrow. My last Charles Church home was completed in Dec 11 and I had much the same experience. Interestingly I'm watching more of the development being built and they have recently switched suppliers on a wide range of items (from kitchens to garage doors) so if I were buying again (which I'm not as they've had more than enough money out of me!) I'd be taking a good close look at standards, Charles Church is supposed to be an upmarket version of their parent company Persimmon but I'm unsure how they achieve that when they use the same suppliers for everything now?