First time buyers value for money

Palec

Hi, I have some bad experience with unethical builders and would like to share my experience and hopefully help others to fight their case and not to lose money.
     As first time buyers we paid deposit on house with Persimmon Homes and Santander bank requested certificate of eradication of Japanese knotweed which environmental search revealed was within development.
     Builders refused to provide certificate because they took only top soil from it, not burnt the roots, so that in the future it could get into foundation of house and reduce its value. We did not proceed and wanted deposit back which builders refused to give us, so we took them to minor claims court and won, they paid us deposit plus court fees, that time I was not aware one can claim money for distress and inconvenience and 8% per annum interest within 6 years from date of purchase.
   
    Then we booked viewing with Bellway homes, which was another disaster, I booked via agency and site manager did not prepare keys from the property we have been interested to buy, just from showhouse, so little trick to make an offer against showhouse, which I found out soon enough, then I was misleaded to another house with smaller kitchen and carport instead of garage, which is closed by bricks, misinformed about worktops via Manhattan kitchen, with site management rude and unhappy we booked snagging inspector, which I would suggest to do for first time buyers anyway.
    Funny bit was snags - they been prepared to repair only those I pointed out on my first visit from my unprofessional point of view, not from snagging list, which was ridiculous.
Legal limit for reporting snags is 2 years, they did not repair all of them anyway, as moved into different development.
 As for contract they did not stick to it also as it says integrated fridgefreezer, after transferring money they told us that because of layout it is not possible to do it integrated and replaced it by freestanding, also turf was laid in February and got frozen without any drainage and top soil, so shame which pointed out also snagging inspector.

We followed complaint procedure without much luck and even head of customer services and CEO been kind of trying to say nothing has happened, they probably do this very often, so that salary of CEO can be over £1 million if they take money from customers and not finish job, so steal from customers on average £2000+.
My wife was stressed enough so we did not take Bellway Homes to court, but I would suggest this after following complaint procedure to do it within 6 years via MCOL, otherwise you will not see any compensation.
Hope this helps and good luck everybody.

Irishpearce26

I need to lie down after reading that!

RelievedSheff

Irishpearce26 said:

I need to lie down after reading that!

You made it to the end?

StandingInTheSun

Some new build developers are absolute cowboys. Well done for having the fortitude and confidence to take them to court though, and to win! Too many people just give up.

nicknameless

RelievedSheff said:

Irishpearce26 said:

I need to lie down after reading that!

You made it to the end?

No I didn't.

Palec

Well I won with Persimmon £500 plus court fees, but not with Bellway as mentioned my wife was stressed enough with court with Persimmon and we somehow followed only complaint procedure up to CEO, but they never admit anything anyway, suggested some kind of mediation via NHBC and been telling us to go to NHBC, but it has nothing to do with NHBC anyway, so what I would suggest is to use MCOL probably. I wrote to local MP to raise awareness few days ago, nothing much I can do now because of time limits, but at least 1 win and to be honest the house from Bellway went up in value, so good escape from Persimmon Homes with their Japanese knotweed on premises. It was most stressful experience except from funeral sofar. Good luck everyone.

Palec

Well I challenged 2x PCN and won with the help on this forum, so wanted to share my experience and maybe help someone to win their case with unethical builders, apologies for long story, could not cut it shorter...

MaryNB

It would helpful if you used paragraphs in your posts. A single large block of text is difficult for people to read. 

Palec

MaryNB I amended it little bit, hope it is better. Take care

AdrianC

So let me get this straight...

You reserved a Persimmon house, but your preferred lender would not lend without a JKW certificate which the developer would not provide. Rather than find another lender, you wanted to cancel your reservation. The developer did not want to let you, so you launched a small claim which they lost. You wish you'd claimed for interest (how much was the reservation, how long between you claiming it and the court judgement?), and for "distress"...

Then you viewed a Bellway house, which you didn't like. There's then a mahoosive gap in the tale, but you appear to have bought and moved into a different house type on the same development despite not liking that either. There was some disagreement over spec details and snagging. Your wife didn't want to make any claim, and more than six years have now passed, so you can't any more.

You think the chief execs are overpaid, but bought from the company anyway.

Did I understand correctly?

Palec

As for Persimmon - You understand correctly.
Reservation : £210000
It is now 10.5 years since incident - Well English is not my first language, so main purpose of this was advice is that if someone claims, can add money for distress and inconvenience plus 8% interest per annum, but within 6 years of purchase ( I hope I got this one right). I did not claimed for it, so others could maybe...

My solicitor advised not to buy because of JKW and Santander would not lend us money anyway, because of not providing certificate of eradication which should be 10 years which they refused. I also believe they save money by this because from my research they had to burn it not to take top soil only. Conclusion is that who bought could loss money because of destructive nature of JKW what probably most people here know.
As they refused to give us deposit back and claimed it was our fault we cancelled, dealt with that via minor claims court.

As for Bellway, I liked the development from advertisement, so I agreed with Connels I believe that I will have a look at 2 types of houses they advertised.
First one showhouse had big kitchen but no parking I was told, which was not truth as parking was behind development in garages, we liked kitchen in that house more than the one we actually bought. The one we are in - the problem I see during buyin was that site manager did not prepare keys from the property, just showhouse claiming cannot find them.
I was doing my research and found out they do it on purpose to show showhouse only to get more money from customers, so that I did not make an offer at a time and said would come again.
I came, so seen the house and negotiation started as except from smaller kitchen we liked it ( I just did not like the fact they wanted to use wow factor and was reading about misleading, misinformation so felt they have done it on purpose ).
I made an initial offer of £220000, they said I would need to go bit higher, so I added £2500 but said as part of this would like to add turf, electric in the carport with light, which they said is garage ( so for those who do not know carport is open into garden, garage is closed by bricks), garden and terrace lamp, basically we have been negotiating to meet somewhere.
Then sales department before agreeing final purchase price suggested they could add integrated dishwasher, washmaschine, fridgefreezer and add 2 more shelves on the wall for additional £2500.
We agreed to this, but after transferring money they told us cannot build in fridgefreezer, which I feel was not fair. Also I called in snagging inspector to help out with buying and he prepared snagging list.
It said they should not lay turf down in February the way they did, because it got frozen, they have not done any drainage, not enough top soil.
As position of house is nice and we liked it, we bought it. I can see problem in customer service and not admitting they done something wrong, not repairing all snags and ignoring snagging list. We have done minor decorative ones on our own. Total cost of things I believe we would not pay if workmanship was better was cca £2000.
We did not claim within 6 years via MCOL.

My advice from experience: Proceed within 6 years after following complaint procedure via MCOL.
Head of customer service incl.CEO said they completed on time, abide my contract, so in contract was integrated fridgefreezer and yes turf, but nobody considered our costs of re-doing it.
On balance since then I was reading reviews of Bellway trying to leave comments and warn buyers to be cautious via trustpilot.
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.bellway.co.uk
Trustpilot published reviews if one bought within 2 years from date of purchase. There is legal limit 2 years for reporting snags, 6 years legal limit for court so those unhappy customers between 2-6 years been not online.
Also they merged into one review of Bellway Homes and Bellway as one had rating under 2, but nowadays it is over 4.
From customer service point of view, I would agree with this:
https://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews170524.html

As for salary of their CEO, well he replied via head of customer service that they completed on time, fulfilled contract fully, which is lie, so I feel they are overpaid because of they ''steal'' or save £2000 in each and every house, of course his salary is what it is if they provide no compensation when following their complaint procedure.

Advice here is after following complaint procedure to proceed via MCOL , add 8% interest rate into claim per annum via first 6 years from date of purchase.
As for money for distress and inconvenience I heard it is possible, not sure if one needs some psychologist paperwork and it is limited to up to £1000, but I am not 100% sure.
From my experience following complaint procedure is waste of time and believing they would be ethical, too and compensate for what they spoilt.
Thank you.