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Are Persimmon really as bad as the web reviews???
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A friend of mine just moved in to a persimmon home. She's had to have it replastered as the finish was so bad. That's only the beginning of it. Great fun especially for a family with kids.
My parents almost got killed from a blocked gas outlet in a brand new Wimpy home some years ago.
I bought a 2 year old Barratt home against my better judgement due to the layout working for us in our particular situation at the time. Even after the previous owners' snagging the finish was awful and the walls seemed to be made of cardboard.
On the other hand my mum is in a lovely flat now which was built by one of the directors of persimmon under a different company. The quality is much better. She got her snagging done as she was first to move in. Unfortunately the guy shut the company down and legged it before several of the other flats got their snagging finished.
Hopefully I will never have to buy a new house again as I plan never moving at all.0 -
I suspect the majority of people who take the time to write online reviews will be the ones who have suffered issues which cause them to have a particular axe to grind and will be shouting about it to anyone and everyone who'll listen.
By contrast, people who have an ordinary, average buying experience don't generally shout about it, and their reviews would be short and dull, therefore aren't often written.0 -
Bbc watchdog did a number on them as well"It is prudent when shopping for something important, not to limit yourself to Pound land/Estate Agents"
G_M/ Bowlhead99 RIP0 -
As others have said, it depends on the development.
We purchased our Persimmon house in 2014, and haven't really had any issues. The build quality is good, soundproofing is good as can hardly hear neighbours and its a semi-detached. Room sizes are large, plot is large, we have a big garden and a private driveway that can fit four cars easily and this is a two bedroom house.
Any snags we had, were fixed within a couple of months. Our kitchen is ok, its a kitchen, it does it job. We will probably upgrade it in a few years anyway.
Only issues we have are they are a bit slow on finishing the development (landscaping, children's park, etc)
However, closer to town Persimmon are building a larger estate and you can see that the plots are far smaller, parking is limited, houses are closer together.0 -
We are in a Persimion new build, now 9 years old. The finish is terrible, poor painting with no knotting and in some places the gloss has missed and you can see the undercoat. The downstairs floor is very uneven, uninsulated pipes between the boiler and water tank plus much else.
They also just put in the minimum sockets and hope you will pay for more, one single in a bedroom and a double by the door of the study. There is only one telephone point and it is in the hallway.
we didn't live in it at forst, let it as we were abroad but now we are back we can see all these faults.0 -
Hi, just to put another perspective on this thread: We have been in a Persimmon build for 3 years now and are extremely happy with it. To summarise my tips:
- Know what you are getting, check and double check all plans / layout / access / plug locations etc, and that you will be comfortable living there
- Negotiate hard. Most negotiating of new builds comes down to the extras rather than the base cost, and is all very dependant on demand of that development. We managed to negotiate upgraded carpets, floor tiling to all other areas (bathrooms, kitchen), shower in main bath (why this isn't standard I'll never know), 1% of stamp duty, turf, appliances, legal fees, and a number of other bits etc. but we had to work hard to get the deal.
- Get a professional "snagger" in to compile an initial snagging list, the builders will advise against this, but it will highlight a lot of things which you may not think about until it is too late, I think this is worth the £400 or so we spent on them
- Ensure you get your moneys worth from the 2 year full warranty, but don't trickle issues to the developers (as they prefer to batch up work). We essentially did one snagging list at the beginning (which our professional snagger did), then 1 year in we provided a list of everything we'd noticed since, and just before our 2 years was up we provided a snagging list of the rest (as there had been a number of cracks appear as the house was settling, which they were happy to fix). I went a bit overkill and provided them with all the issues on a spreadsheet with pictures of each issue so there was no confusion of what I was asking them to do.
- Know the site manager whilst they are still on-site (if possible), we got to know ours and it was very handy as they can help sort out things quickly whilst they have all the trades available. Again, when the customer relations team come round to do the snagging fixes, if you are organised and very friendly, then you will get more out of them.
From what I hear, Persimmon are not much different from other big developers: Barrat, Taylor Wimpey, Bellway etc, all of which have their horror stories. A lot of how good they are is site dependant, and we may have just been lucky! But thats my input..
- HouseMoo :www:0 -
You buy a pig in a poke when purchasing any new build, and you usually pay a premium price to do it.
Regardless of the national house builder's name, I wonder why anyone does it. Special monetary deals? Part-exchange? I'm sure I can't see the attraction.
Each to there own, I don't like houses built in the 1930's, tiny bedroom, chimney taking out most of the floor space, horrible small kitchens.
Each builder is different, I looked at a lot of new builds and builders in the past year, and I would have to say my opinion of persimmon homes is that they are cheap. The houses don't seem to have been designed well and the finish is very poor.0 -
Each to there own, I don't like houses built in the 1930's, tiny bedroom, chimney taking out most of the floor space, horrible small kitchens.
How many are still like that though? That was part of my point; I'd rather spend the extra cost of a new build on something that's been reworked, from whatever era.
The person who bought my 1930s semi got a much larger kitchen than the original + a utility room and downstairs cloaks.
The small bedroom also wasn't any smaller than the one in the noughties house which my daughter lives in now.
But the 'pig in a poke' comment was as much to do with the social make-up of established areas of housing....and the way that builders can make significant alterations to plans, seemingly on a whim.0 -
I can see both sides of this argument...
I live in a 1930 gate house. Its damp, it needs a major overhaul such as roof/windows/heating and frankly its pokey. I hate it.
I am buying a new build - the layout is better rooms are bigger. more sockets, brighter as has more windows, bigger kitchen. but i have also found out the house we are buying from persimmons has no planning permission.
Someone further up the thread said knowledge is key. I tell you i have done more research on this house than the FBI does on suspects. Everything from water drainage to where the street lights are going to be placed thats how i became aware that the changes they made were not lodged with the council and now the planning teams enforcement unit is doing a site visit.
Currently due to them miss judging the incline to the back of the house they have arbitrarily made changes - namely building no back door or side gate, a garage so much higher than the house you could load your shopping in via a bedroom window, no direct access to the garden, driveway or utility room and due to the removal of a pedestrian path from the plans the only access to the house is now to have to walk in the road to get in our front door.
I am not unduly concerned, we have not exchanged contracts so at the moment i am sitting pretty to see what they are going to do to put this right. The site manager has referred the matter to the technical team to have the 'area redesigned' so we are seeing what that entails.
Currently they have been nothing but pleasant, forthright and understanding, as have i. But if they don't put it right i will pull out and take them to small claims for my losses.Please note I have a cognitive disability - as such my wording can be a bit off, muddled, misspelt or in some cases i can miss out some words totally...0 -
The persimmon site closest to me we looked at and it seemed ok, a friend brought Charles church who are part of persimmon and their house was fine, a bits needed patching up but other than that ok, the worst part is the sales/after sales they are just so greedy and ruthless! House buying and selling is stressful enough and they make it worse0
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