...to ask has anyone brought a Barratt Home and loved happily ever after??

[LurksNoLonger]

Not sure if I am in the right place and this is my first post (hence username 😁) but all constructive advice would be welcomed...We live overseas but are planning on returning in the next twelve months. We were hoping to build our own home but felt it might be a bit tricky to project manage from abroad. We recently spotted an advert for a new development in the area we were considering (Kent) that ticks most of our boxes and thought this might be a easier, more straightforward way to get the spec we were after with less stress. They had never appealed before but on paper this one seems spacious and well thought out. However, a few googles later and it seems like a massive gamble as the internet is positively brimming with people claiming to have had their lives ruined by shoddy workmanship at the hands of development builders. Just wondering if there are any positive stories out there that might reassure us not to kill this germ of an idea off before it's really taken hold. Surely there must be some folk out there sitting in their Barratt Homes who love them and who are living happily ever after 😁...Thanks!

Yes our garden was/is full of rubbish. The soil is dreadful as well. As said previously we were the 2nd owners so at least it had been turfed. Our plot was where the site office was so maybe it was worse due to that.

Luckily our garden is sizable the only good thing about the house

My friend is a project manager overseeing various builders doing new builds. In her opinion Barrett's is one of the worst.

Oh yes, the garden. We're trying to landscape it and the amount of rubble we're uncovering is amazing. The small trenches we've dug around our shed to put raised beds on become moats when it rains.

There are a few exceptions, but most new builds are hideously compromised in their design in key areas, which is impossible to see from a sales information leaflet and plan. I'd only ever buy one if I could stand in an exact replica with a tape measure. There's also the rest of the estate - in particular, parking - which you can only really understand by standing there and bashing the palm of your hand against your forehead wondering who the hell thought it was sensible to design five bedroom homes miles from anywhere with one parking space per property and no other parking whatsoever.

I bought a Barratt home 15 years ago and had a few snagging problems and shoddy workmanship as well as outright stupidity. Examples: a space exactly 60cm wide for a washing machine in the utility room. Only they then went and stuck in a skirting board, which narrowed the space below the 60cm width of a standard appliance. Removing the skirting board took half the wall away with it, naturally not Barratt's problem to fix. Choice of white or stainless steel for the oven and hob, but only (porous, stainable) white plastic for the kitchen sink. Carpets were included, but it was not possible to have the same colour in the halls and rooms! The bathrooms were also, bizarrely, carpeted. They installed a TV aerial socket on the other side of the room from the one electrical socket. Ditto phone socket in a narrow entrance hall, nowhere near an electrical socket and with mounting a phone on the wall right behind the only place you could put a coat rack as the only option. No phone socket in the room designated as "study"!

We're thinking about buying a Redrow new build. What has struck me is the far better customisation options Redrow offer in terms of upgrades to fixtures and fittings and even structural changes such as adding an extra door in an internal wall.

We've looked at other new builds (step forward Bloor Homes) where you had to take their standard, useless kitchen whether you wanted it or not, and then gut it and install your own to have any chance of making it useable.

I bought a new build Barrett house a year ago. Actually the 4th new build I've bought over last 15 years and considering the size of it (4 bed detached) I have had far less snagging than in the previous flats I bought with different builders. We got loads of extras thrown in, it's in a lovely area that we both knew and the layout suits us perfectly. Only real issue we've had is that the garden is on a bigger slope than they made out so we've had to pay for landscaping to be done. There's a lot of building going on in my local area and I've heard horror stories from other sites (different builders) but most people here seem happy.

Hi,

I'm not sure if IABU but it's bugging me so just wanted to find out what others think of would do...

I have been together with my partner for almost 7yrs and before that we were both in long term relationships (got together when we were both single just to clarify) any way..

My partners sister is still friends with his long term ex and every now and again brings her up to him or tells him what she's up to (her mum passed away and she's had a few relationships and now has a baby). It wasn't a pleasant break up and my parter had to block her number, delete off Facebook and even de-friended any friends they had in common (her side mostly, not his own) as he needed a clean break.
Any way his sister is still friends with her and I've mentioned to my partner that I don't understand out of respect to him she should de-friend her from Facebook and I find it's quite insulting to me as we have been together for almost 7yrs and have a child so she shouldn't need to be friends with her any longer and out of respect for him (and me). However he's said that he can't stop her from being friends with her on Facebook or tell her it's up to her and I do understand that however I'm just frustrated and think it's quite insulting to us both especially as she brings her up (not in front of me but has text him or mentioned stuff when I've not been in the room or to their mum who has then passed things on)

It's annoying me and I haven't thought about it for ages but it's now started bugging me again! Think I just need a bit of a moan as can't really say much more to him as don't want to fall out it's not his fault his sister is still friends with her (Facebook friend she doesn't talk or communicate with her).
Just bugs me, anyone else had similar thing happen?

We did and lived happily for 4 years before we moved on.

Houses were like Legoland though. They are not well built.

I also found the site staff really unhelpful and aggressive. The site were were buying our house at was in the middle of 3 railway lines and could only be accessed by 2 tunnels. So you needed a smaller removals lorry, as otherwise they could not fit under the railway bridge. She was horrible about it, saying "if you don't tell them and they bring the wrong lorry, then it's your fault". We'd not said anything about lorries or the size thereof. Amazingly she still works for them.

Also, on our site there were two divisions of Barratts building. They were still building houses at the bottom of our garden and decided that it would be fine to put their scaffolding into our garden without getting our permission first. When we objected they could not understand what our problem was. Then they said it was nothing to do with them because it was the other division. In the end, they put up some fences for us free of charge as compensation for using our garden for two months!

They also insisted on putting carpet in the bathrooms. Yuk. It would have cost us more for them not to put it down! And when we said we wanted a gap in the worktop for a freestanding tall fridge, rather than a larder-type fridge, they wanted to charge us £50 - for less worktop!

I think some builders are really good, but I would not recommend Barratts on our experience. On the plus side they didn't do the scam of making houses that should be freehold leasehold so they can continue to make money out of you via ground rent. No idea if they do that now, though. I understand Taylor Wimpey do that.

Oh and they made the affordable housing look a lot less appealing than the other housing. So nasty and unnecessary, it must cost buttons to use the same facades.

Don't rely blindly on the NHBC guarantee, they try to wriggle out of their obligations, too.

So in a nutshell, don't do it.

Carpets were included, but it was not possible to have the same colour in the halls and rooms

We had to have the same colour throughout.

We love our Taylor Wimpey new build. Had no problems at all and great service. Also really spacious inside and out.
But... we were lucky to have a superb sales woman who really cared and an excellent site manager who was apparently fanatical about quality. Others have not been so lucky.
Also, I think they've stopped doing it as some banks won't do mortgages, but what for the 999 year leasehold scam. Make sure it's freehold.

we bought ours off the previous owner who had been in it 12 years, they bought off plan. They had done all the snagging and made it better over the years, We could also see about flooding ect and how the estate was. I love it. At the time it was between this one and a new estate off plan. Our friends bought in the off plan estate and it has been nothing but problems and has flooding in the winter. I don't regret our decison for a second

I'd only buy a new build if it was a one-off house made by an independent and reputable builder. Developers are purely profit driven and as time is money, they just need to throw them as fast as possible without worrying about durability.

not with a bargepole

It can really depend on the development I think. We bought a new build on a development, although we're the second owners. Really happy with it and the quality. Not overlooked, big garden etc, so none of the usual new build complaints. SIL recently bought on another site only a few miles away and has had problem after problem as have most of her neighbours.