developers - the good, the bad and the ugly

[comeondover]

I'm considering a new build, which is a bit of a departure for me. Can we crowdsource an informal trustpilot for developers here? I'm guessing some companies build better quality houses than others. Would love to hear MNers experiences. And how common is it for houses to start showing problems after the 10-year guarantee is up?

I’ve had two new builds. The first one was Miller Homes, they were great and we had absolutely no issues.

The second was Charles Church aka the ‘Tesco finest’ brand of Persimmon homes. We’ve had a lot of issues with the plumbing and guttering over the years. The shower in the en-suite wasn’t water tight and we ended up having the whole lot ripped out and replaced before the house was five years old. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had to have a plumber out to repair random leaks, the inside gubbins of all the toilets have had to be replaced as what Charles Church had used was cheap rubbish and we had water constantly running in the toilet bowls.

They cut a lot of other corners too, for example the fusebox is shoved in the top corner of one of the rooms. I’m pretty sure it’s actually not compliant with building regs as you’d never reach it if you were in a wheelchair. They did this purely to save costs of chasing the wires through to put the fuse box in a more sensible place such as the cupboard under the stairs. It took ages for the council to adopt the road because the workmanship was shocking where they had surfaced it.

Yes and no - on our estate, for the couple of houses that were sold again in the first 2 years or so, they went at a reduced price because they were competing against the brand new ones. Once the development was more complete, the prices gradually evened out and came into line with the market. We have just sold ours for normal market value at 8 years old, there are only a couple of brand new ones left now and the estate is nearly finished (new ones still priced higher than ours)

What were similar non new builds increasing by in the area?

On new builds they don't chase wires in. The wiring is put in the stud walls beforehand. Obviously they are going to put it in a sensible place in terms of where all the wiring comes centrally together.

I don't know why some fuseboxes are placed high up. Some reasons might be :

i) Keep them away from water.

ii) Stop the switches being messed around with by kids.

There is probably a requirement to put them in an accessible place where they can be easily seen so they can be switched off by fire crew on entry to a house.

I am surprised there are not more regs about putting them in small cupboards, as fuse boxes are a common part of an electrical system to catch fire and I would have thought if they catch fire in small cupboards the potential for the fire to spread is probably a lot worse because of the enclosed space.

Similar.

Gosh that's a long build time!

My Dd2 bought a Bellway house and it's been a great investment.
Hardly any snags and the finish was excellent. Lived there 5 years from new and no problems with it , touch wood 🤗

Must have been lucky…the one my friend bought was a disgrace…even floors were so bad (cracked and terrible effervescence due to drying too quickly ) couldn’t have carpets laid for ages. Windows cracked, kitchen chipped, dents in walls…the list goes on

Cala awful. Quality terrible. After service is awful.

Had a Barrett’s from new in 2014 and it was great (hence less sceptical than we should have been about a nearly new build).

Value - they’ve maintained rather than lost their value. Houses we looked at for the same price in 2020 are now worth about 10% more than ours.

The current batch of new builds in our area are on for silly prices, I think they’re attracting people from further afield who aren’t comparing to the local market. There’s no way they’ll hold their value.

Just chiming in. Viewed a small developer, 4 houses. Smaller builds don't have the warranties from larger developments, so it's an architect or professional consultant certificates.

The house I was looking at is really cheap, but it put me off when they said it's only 4 months maintenance period where the builder will rectify problems, and then it's 10 year claims against the architects insurance, which isn't the same as a warranty. You would have to go through legal means to get any recompense. But very little info online about PCCs.

What also put me off is how cheap they went on the build, the planning documents stated things that they omitted or changed to cheaper options.

That's a weird system. I hope you find somewhere you love