New build houses

Dennis said:
Probably going to look at moving house next year/once the Coronavirus fucks off (if I still have a job). Heard about certain housebuilding companies being hopeless, are any rated highly? Or who is the least shit?
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I would give you 3 bits of advice.

1. Don’t buy a leasehold.
2. Don’t buy a leasehold.
3. Don’t buy a leasehold.

It’s interesting to note that the person who owns 2 billion quid of leaseholds is Lord Astor, the brother-in-law of David Cameron who was Prime Minister when the Lease new-build scam began.

Strange coincidence that. Save yourself a lifetime of misery trying to battle against the rich, privileged and corrupt to own your own home.
 


tenpins said:
They are all freehold now. I value 20 - 30 new builds each month for the banks. Which new build leasehold houses have you seen recently?
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They are not freehold. They are ”fleecehold” where the revenue stream from rents is replaced by one from Service and Maintenance charges.

Since you are working in the Industry can you tell me what the name of the Act was that was passed in 2019 outlawing leaseholds please?
 
Stevie said:
They are not freehold. They are ”fleecehold” where the revenue stream from rents is replaced by one from Service and Maintenance charges.

Since you are working in the Industry can you tell me what the name of the Act was that was passed in 2019 outlawing leaseholds please?
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Leaseholds are not outlawed. New build houses are now all freehold. It become policy and criteria for lending on new builds. My mistake to say it became statute. Estate or service charges on most new builds are normally a couple of hundred pounds p.a although what you get from that is subject to debate.
 
These service charges you see now are horrendous like. Some asking for well over a grand a year for what ffs?

Remember when I was looking at an apartment in Ashbrooke about 12 years ago and it was something like 500 quid a year which was a decent wedge on top of the mortgage. Put me right off.
 
Mackem00 said:
These service charges you see now are horrendous like. Some asking for well over a grand a year for what ffs?

Remember when I was looking at an apartment in Ashbrooke about 12 years ago and it was something like 500 quid a year which was a decent wedge on top of the mortgage. Put me right off.
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I’ve warned my kids to never ever by a flat or a townhouse.
Easy enough to buy but flats especially takes some shifting.
 
Gillythedilf said:
I’ve warned my kids to never ever by a flat or a townhouse.
Easy enough to buy but flats especially takes some shifting.
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I look back and see that I properly dodged a bullet like. This was a decent apartment in a nice area aswell. I very nearly got a loft one (one teeny little window and that was it) on the old Royal Infirmary site which would have been even worse. They seem pretty much impossible to shift. Once we started looking at proper houses mind it was an absolute no brainer.
 
oddjob said:
We moved into a Cussins house 18 months ago. If I posted 1/2 the shite that’s gone wrong you wouldn’t believe it.

an absolute shitshow from the very first day. We are just about to hand a file to our solicitor.
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What Cussins site are you on? I have just moved out of Miller homes new build what I was in for 3 year, they were brilliant. All snags done in around 4 weeks and customer service was second to none for the following two years of warranty.
Moved on to Cussins development 4 weeks ago and I have seen nothing like it. Absolute shit show, my snag list is 5 pages long and hasn’t ended.
 
mini-x2 said:
Bellway are f***ing shit. Absolute cowboys.
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We bought a Bellway flat as our first home In 2007. Even the walk around the day we moved in was horrendous - a bath handle missing, a hole in the living room door and a rail missing from the built in wardrobes had all been missed. Clearly very little quality control went on. We could hear every little sound out upstairs neighbours made and ended up getting buildings standards/NHBC out to check the soundproofing.

We swore we’d never buy a new build again, but did in 2018 and have had no problems other than then being slow to fix things - only major “snagging” was the creaky floorboards and a leak from the upstairs en suite (which the plumber blamed on the flooring fitter and the foooring fitter blamed on the plumber) We’ve nothing outstanding now and have been in 19months.
 
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REDM1ST said:
Waste of time and money. You’re basically tasking someone to pick up on any tiny faults that you hadn’t noticed and didn’t give a toss about until they pointed it out. Newbuilds get independent inspections throughout the whole building process by independent bodies who issue a level of guarantee against future problems. I’ve personally seen many new customers who’ve purchased a newbuild and have keys handed over and are over the moon with the property. Have follow up visits called 7 and 28 day visit and asked to provide a snagging list of any defects or problems that they may have, then told zero problems love the house it’s perfect. Then they google snagging and one of these “Professional” snagging experts gets a job and comes up with a list of 200+ problems that the client didn’t have any issues with prior. Hair on a wall, tiny imperfections in a pain of glass, a door jar 2mm out, absolute wast of time and money if you didn’t notice before but now those things are on your mind and you now hate the house you’ve just paid all that money for.


For good reason. They are full of shite mostly untrained goons with ocd. Anybody can pick faults with anything. Why pay someone to pull your house to bits and point out imperfections you’ve not noticed or bothered you before?
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I'm assuming you're a site manager? In which case your bonus s dependant on a positive customer survey?
 
The biggest issue I have with my newer house is everytime I need to get under the floorboards (granted not that often), I`ve got to clear the bastard room because its them wooden sheet things they`ve got down instead of floorboards.

Plumbings been shite as well tbf, most things have now leaked at some point or other :lol:
Mickdundee said:
We bought a Bellway flat as our first home In 2007. Even the walk around the day we moved in was horrendous - a bath handle missing, a hole in the living room door and a rail missing from the built in wardrobes had all been missed. Clearly very little quality control went on. We could hear every little sound out upstairs neighbours made and ended up getting buildings standards/NHBC out to check the soundproofing.

We swore we’d never buy a new build again, but did in 2018 and have had no problems other than then being slow to fix things - only major “snagging” was the creaky floorboards and a leak from the upstairs en suite (which the plumber blamed on the flooring fitter and the foooring fitter blamed on the plumber) We’ve nothing outstanding now and have been in 19months.
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You complained about creaky floorboards ? :lol:
 
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raba said:
I'm assuming you're a site manager? In which case your bonus s dependant on a positive customer survey?
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No not a site manager or assistant or a tradesman. But we all try to work as a team onsite, whether subbed in contractors or directly employed. However these so called professional snaggers are just disgruntled busy bodies trying to justify the price they are charging. Ex NHBC inspectors getting one over on site managers they didn’t get on with, an ex retired joiner pulling 70% of the joinery work in a house. I could go on.
 
REDM1ST said:
No not a site manager or assistant or a tradesman. But we all try to work as a team onsite, whether subbed in contractors or directly employed. However these so called professional snaggers are just disgruntled busy bodies trying to justify the price they are charging. Ex NHBC inspectors getting one over on site managers they didn’t get on with, an ex retired joiner pulling 70% of the joinery work in a house. I could go on.
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What I find hardest is getting my on site plumbers to go in to a property to complete a small snag job than book a customer care plumber to attend in a week time. I have to promise I'll get them paid for correcting their own fault. Greedy bastards.
 
raba said:
What I find hardest is getting my on site plumbers to go in to a property to complete a small snag job than book a customer care plumber to attend in a week time. I have to promise I'll get them paid for correcting their own fault. Greedy bastards.
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Getting most tradesmen back in for customer care is a ballache because they want to make money, and they are not doing that if they are doing customer care. Subcontractors especially as their firms are reluctant to pay unless they get signed addendum.
 
Crook Mackem said:
You complained about creaky floorboards ? :lol:
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These weren’t just creaky floorboards - this was a significant issue across the whole of the upstairs where they hadn’t screwed the flooring “casettes” in properly (Some hadn’t been screwed in at all). Every time my son rolled over in bed or my daughter went to the toilet overnight the freak could be heard to the extent we. Hold head it over the TV in the living room. It was a significant issue.
 
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Mickdundee said:
These weren’t just creaky floorboards - this was a significant issue across the whole of the upstairs where they hadn’t screwed the flooring “casettes” in properly (Some hadn’t been screwed in at all). Every time my son rolled over in bed or my daughter went to the toilet overnight the freak could be heard to the extent it would drown out the TV in the living room. It was a significant issue.
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:lol: :lol: thats noway to talk about your kids


;)
 
REDM1ST said:
Getting most tradesmen back in for customer care is a ballache because they want to make money, and they are not doing that if they are doing customer care. Subcontractors especially as their firms are reluctant to pay unless they get signed addendum.
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Yep. I have to sign off customer care work on their time sheets. Some are alright as it gets them off site for a while, especially when the weather's bitter but I've had some huge rows with others for being incompetent.

The directors of the company are good at getting rid of lazy or useless staff as the money they make from the developers is ridiculous.
 
Persimmon are a nightmare, we agreed to buy the Showhome off them in November and we were due to move in by February. Even before the virus kicked off they were messing us about. Still havnt moved in yet, it's only the fact that we got such a good deal on the showhome and it includes basically everything that was in it that has stopped us totally f***ing them off and pulling out. They never answer the phone, respond to emails or do things they say they will do, we are hoping that because it's the showhome they will surely have put a bit more effort into building it correctly.
 

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