Charles Church & Persimmon Homes

dmn1981

Where do I start?!

Let's just say that I was supposed to exchange today, but didn't because of a delay with our buyers. So trying to keep on top of it, and keeping CC up to date with the state of play, both my wife and I had the phone put down on us by one of the sales office people (the same person!).

I ended up having a conversation with the Commercial Director of Persimmon/CC, and waiting on a call back tomorrow.

The service so far has been disgusting! Once we're completed and moved in, I'll update you on the sales process we've been through, and the shocking service we've received!

DMN1981

Ps. We're buying in the south!

Georgesmum79

CC in the South west have a sales person called Maggie who is not the greatest to deal with. I had been asked by another salesperson to pop in after work, and when it was only Maggie there she treated me like a leper because I had the nerve to show up without an appointment. No the best service in the world....

Ams123

Tabby2 wrote: »

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?

I have brought a 3 bed recently from them and the customer services is really bad, the houses have so many outstanding issues i'm sooo fed up now trying to get them sorted. This is how bad they are, the labs laid down in the garden have concrete on them from the build and should of been cleaned on completion, we were told that because the agency brick layers caused the mess the agency would have to clean them up and they'll look into it, nothing has happened since. i have asked them many times to come out on this and other issues. They are crap and the houses are crap, they show you these show homes all done-up but you wont get anything near it....im am sure that showing a product and getting something different is illegal so why do these builders get away with it?

Grumpy_owner

I was told before I built with Charles church that they were top quality among builders. Wow how wrong we're they. If I told you all the things that were dodgy, half arsed or just not done, then I would be here all night. I highly recommend that who ever you are, stay well away from from these cowboys.
Seriously unhappy!

Georgesmum79

Well, just completed our first year in the CC house. The quality of finish has been quite poor throughout and the site manager was clearly blind as clearly didn't see any of the multiple cosmetic issues we saw the moment we walked in the first time.
However, I have found the customer care reasonably good on the whole, and all the cosmetic issues have been fixed fairly quickly. They seem to expect the buyer to spot the issues and report them, rather than do any checking themselves. We haven't had any major problems, structurally, with the services or appliances.
The rooms are generous in size (4 bed detached), particularly the master, we have parking for three cars and a garage. The garden is also pretty good in size. However, the two neighbours we have also have CC 4 bed detached, and they are easily about 30% smaller and the gardens are tiny: but they did pay about £20-30K less than us, I would guess.
The very best thing is the insulation of the house though! My previous house was a 3-bed semi, also a new build, but of the breeze block construction. The CC house is probably at least 30% larger than the previous house and yet my heating bill has gone down!! The gas company wrote to us to query the meter readings I submitted as they were well below their estimates!!


Would I buy from CC again: not. This because of the long list of cosmetic faults they should have rectified before we moved in, if they had bothered to check. Given the money we paid, this is the minimum we would expect. Neighbours have had issues with shoddy plumbing, which we luckily have avoided: again, with a little bit of attention to detail, and the site manager bothering to check on any work his staff have done, these would have been avoided. Although we love living in this house, for those reasons wouldn't;t buy from them again. I would be too worried that next time I was one of those unlucky ones.

domcastro

Seemingly Persimmon don't get NHBC guarantees. My friend works for them and said their last lot of houses were so flimsy , they weren't guaranteed under the scheme.

lee111s

Persimmon are a shower of !!!!!

Resident11

We are in a close of a dozen homes. The houses are 12 months old.
Due to the fact the houses are developing more and more problems, we have all had full structural surveys done.

Result - Every single house has failed! I still have dozens of snags dating back 11 months that have not been touched yet.

Ground levels around the houses are too high so the air bricks cannot do their jobs. The ground in many places is above the damp proof course.

This is a disaster.... avoid them or regret it folks!

Georgesmum79

Resident11; whereabouts is your house? Is it built by CC or Persimmon? Have you got NHBC involved?
Yes, I know they are the same, but the site managers are different, and I believe that it's the site manager who makes the difference between good and bad. On our developments the CC houses don't seem to have had any major issues, but the Persimmon ones more so.

rjoggy

My wife and I reserved a Charles Church house back in November 2014, and we were all excited about getting our new home.

But since then I read all these reviews and I started to worry about what we had signed up for, but my wife still wanted to continue.
The contracts were supposed to be exchanged at the end of December, but for some unknown reason this didn't happen and by February still no exchange, and this was nothing to do at our end.
We had questions that required answering about the house, and these went unanswered for weeks, which we never did get any answer. Luckily with all the delays, my wife changed her mind and we decided to cancel the reservation.

All done so I thought as I just needed to wait for my £750 refund from my reservation, as they keep £250 if we cancel.
A month on and loads of phone calls later I actually received a check, I thought that I was finally done with them but no, they only refunded me £250 (£500 short). When I called the sales team I was told by the woman that I was only due to £500 refund, so I pointed out that I have the paperwork stating that I am entitled to £750 refund, and she seemed surprised about this. But this has now been resubmitted to head office and I am still waiting for my money.
I am so glad we have pulled out, as if this is how they treat you BEFORE you buy, I dread to think what they are like after you complete, and after my wife has spoken with someone she knows who has recently brought a Persimmon home, the amount of issues they are having with the quality of the build makes me so relieved that we cancelled.

I can only comment about our experience beforehand, but I cannot comment on the actual build quality. But what I do know that none of them seem to know what they are talking about, and you have to constantly chase them up for answers as they never get back to you unless you badger them like I have had to do.

Thank you all for your reviews, as this has save us from making a dreadful costly mistake.