Anyone used Novo Cucine recently

JonBarnett

DO NOT..I REPEAT...DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY

I am writing this currently spitting feathers so i apologise in advance for grammar, spelling and punctuation.

This company is the saddest and incompetent excuse for a corporate entity i have ever come across in my 10 years of construction and property development.

Still waiting for 8 weeks for a few little bits of kitchen to finish it off.

Wrong doors were ordered in the wrong colour.

The installations guy, Eric, doesn't seem to have the foggiest idea about what he is doing and find.

This company, which they will probably close down and re-open under another name, doesn't care about you, your kitchen all the care is about the money and blame everyone else for their crap business ethics and processes.

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY!!!

How they can still be allowed to trade after all this reviews is beyond me!!

citizen66

Damn! Only just handed over £900 deposit 2 days ago and just found a small mistake on the plans, so came on the internet to find how to contact them, and I came across these reviews. I hope I am not going to regret this.


If I needed to, how will I get my money back? I paid by cash.

cool_dude_2000

Invoke your 14 day cooling off cancellation as per your statutory rights. Believe me it it's not worth dealing with these clowns.

Qualcast

We had their salesman round for 5 hours. Had the usual "I just phone Don the boss tactic and see if he will do it cheaper routine" finally agreed a price paid a deposit then the fun started.
Got a call from Don after a couple of days to arrange a survey, by then we had researched the company and realised our mistake (bad bad bad reviews about there workmanship) so I asked for a refund and he put the phone down on me.
Letter after letter, phone call after phone call, excuses after excuses later we are now going to court to get a refund. Seems like they are about as dishonest as the reviews on the internet say they are(any decent company would refund your deposit).
Be aware the contract you sign is illegal as it only offers 7 days calling of period (14 days is the law) and trading standards have been informed and are looking into this.
I would avoid them at all cost.

dontmess666

Why don't you complain to the main director Donald Harry Burden. His address is 12 Lambs Close, Dunstable, Beds LU5 4QA. You can let him know what you think of his outfit.

Qualcast

Thanks for his home address. He will not answer the phone and his poor staff must spend allday making excuses for him.

Qualcast

Phone trading standards and follow there advice, lucky for me my wife works with lawyers so got the best advice. It all gone to court and proberley court bailiffs. :A:T

Paris496

DO NOT EVER USE THIS SORRY EXCUSE FOR A COMPANY!!!!!!!!!

I am in utter hell and have been for months. I was bullied into handing over my money (full amount) in November 2014, it is now May 2015 and I still do not have a full kitchen.

They got our plans wrong 3 times, you can NEVER get hold of anybody, Eric is the most useless man and orders the wrong doors numerous times, leaves you on hold for 10/15 minutes and the goes to lunch or goes home without picking up the call. Don is the main problem as he is the manager & has zero skills it would seem. What a joke of a company. I'm appalled at their customer service and lack of communication. I repeat; never use them. Trust me, it is not worth it.

Qualcast

Post your reviews on google+.I did and the next day 5 good reviews appeared, amazing how there are no average reviews just glowing or bad.

moneysavinguser1234

So, I asked the original question, and here is my story.

Don came over to do the designs. He’s a nice polite guy, there was no sales pressure - his designs were nice, and we worked together to perfect them. After a lot of thought and reading a lot of negative reviews, I put down the deposit. Not long after, another guy came over, I forget his name, but he did all the technical survey - it could have been Eric. Again, nice and polite - however after the survey, a few design changes had to be made - however this is probably normal, and there is always a conflict with design and praticality. Nothing major, I just had to choose an induction hob, as the units above the cooker were too close to be gas hobs.

Deposit down, I was given a date for delivery and installation - 22nd April 2014. This is where a few problems started. I was probably a more tolerant customer, as I was doing a full refurb, and I didn’t really have any urgency to get the kitchen in by a particular date, however if I needed it in when we first arranged the date, then I would have been quite frustrated. To be fair, I cancelled the first date and put it back a few weeks due to some internal structural issues I had, but then I had another date scheduled, 10th June. 10th June, 10:30am a guy turned up - didn’t really have a clue. He said “I hope your drawings are better than mine”. Took some measurements - but I had no confidence in him at all. He left after doing the measurements - I chatted with someone at Novo about him, and we both decided not to use him, as I needed building work done with the install, which this guy couldn’t do. So I got another fitter, and another date. Can’t remember exactly what date - maybe it was the 13th June. However, the guy didn’t turn up - and I got a call from Novo - he’s had an accident an he’s in hospital! You have to be kidding me! Both fitters I had went to hospital before they got to me !! Is he going to die too? Whether these were lies or sheer coincidence, I don’t know - but I can tell you I was pretty worried. But I’m a patient guy….

So, 19th June - finally a fitter turned up. Mark. I was told he could do all the work, i.e. the kitchen fitting and the building work. First thing he tells me is the electrics were not good enough. Fair enough, it’s an old house. He said his friend could sort it out and put in a new circuit for the ovens… he quoted £1200 !! I wasn’t born yesterday - I got some more quotes, and I paid around £600 for the electric work from another builder I was using - which seemed fair for the electrician to come out on two occasions and for the cost of the cable, maybe I could have got it cheaper than this. But I was happy with that. So I didn’t get off to a good start trusting Mark, although he assured me thats what the other guys quote was - whether they have a ‘thing’ going to get a bit more cash out of people I don’t know.

Anyway, Mark turned out to be a good fitter and builder and did a really good job. It wasn’t perfect, and I’m a bit of a perfectionist. But to anyone coming to see my kitchen, they are all impressed and think it looks great. I’m really happy with it too. It’s not quite the design Don did originally, but it’s pretty close. Don made some errors with his calculations and the way some of my cupboards would be aligned, but it turned out looking better than the design anyway.

It took about 2 1/2 weeks to complete, and at the end there were just a few things missing. My glass splash back, some of the plinths, some of my hinges weren’t slow close. But mostly it was good. Matt came over to check over things. He’s another nice guy. There was a little confusion with the glass splash back in that it was supposed to be the same colour as my cabinets. At first he said this wasn’t possible - which is contrary to my design. I insisted it must be. Matt went away to sort it out, and about 3-4 weeks later, my splash back and the other bits arrived and it was perfect. Mark came back one weekend and fitted it all.

I’ve had the kitchen almost a year now and we still love it. Only problem I’ve had is my tap broke. I called up to let them know and Don told me to call CDA directly and they would send a new one, which I did and CDA sent me a new tap. Now I just needed to get someone to fit it, obviously at their expense, not mine. I called, and I called, and I called…. kept trying to speak with Eric, they kept saying he would call me back. He never did. I finally got to speak to Eric, he was polite and apologetic and said that he would get a note to Matt to get it sorted out. Matt never called, nobody got back to me. Eric did say I should call him again if Matt didn’t contact me, but why should I have to do this - I’m busy, I have a job and two kids ! I gave up. I got a plumber in and got him to fit the tap for me. In fact, Eric was asking me to get quotes from local plumbers anyway, so I assume they would just reimburse me. So I shall send them the invoice and go from there.

So, would I recommend Novo ? If you’re patient and tolerant, then yes - I would recommend them. Their prices were in the middle of some top end places we visited, and some of the cheaper familiar kitchen brands you know. I’m sure coordinating a kitchen install is not the simplest of things so I give them the benefit of the doubt - even though they may have been telling me some porky pies regarding the fitters not turning up on time. Their customer service leaves a lot to be desired, but at no point was anybody rude to me. Everyone I spoke to was polite, and I was polite with them - maybe if I was screaming down the phone at them I might have got a different response, but screaming at someone isn’t a way to resolve the problems. They are not crooks - as some have put on here, nor are they the perfect company - but we wanted a stand out, custom kitchen and that is what we got. So in the end, we’re happy - it just took a while to get there. I’ll put some photos up on Flickr at some point for you to have a look at the finish.