New Home Owners And Snagging Forum
Advice on buying a brand new home => House Builders => Topic started by: pugman on May 06, 2019, 06:08:52 am
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Firstly this website is amazing - thank you!
Secondly, has anybody heard of Barwood Homes?
Am looking at a very nice development in Weston Turville, Buckinghamshire
The properties *look* very well built and its a small site (less than 30 homes)
But I can find very little detail on the developer
Thanks
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I've never heard of them, but that may be a good thing.
They have only been around since 2010 and according to their website have 14 developments.
My advice be sure to buy on one that has an NHBC warranty. If it doesn't DONT BUY!
LABC isn't as good in my opinion. Talk to others on the development and ask them what they think of their homes. I wouldn't pay muh heed to potentitally doctored testimonials on the housebuilders website.
Speaking of website, Barwood's seem to have a lot of broken links/pages not available from their Home page. This is not a good sign and demonstrates a lack of attention to detail!
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Thank you, the development I'm looking at will have NHBC warranty - I have documentation on this from the sales guy. It's also freehold.
The plot I want is a corner plot which has greenbelt to the side and back. There are no development plans for these areas currently.
One question, for the plot I'm looking at the road outside the house is owned by myself and the road opposite (per plan). The sales guy told me this means if there ever was to be a development to the side of the house, they would have to get my permission. Is that really true?
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It could be. Sounds like what they call a ransom strip - provided it is the only way to access the land for housebuilding. Check the deeds to see who has rights of access to use the road you part own too!
Make sure you have that NHBC warranty.
I had a buyer today, say they were told it would be NHBC, only to discover it was BLP when the exchanged!
Sales and estate agents do tell lies!
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Well, just a short update - the salesman I dealt and reserved with has now taken off “backpacking”.
The new sales person informed me the warranty is BLP and not NHBC. I will be pulling out of this one.
Lots of new builds in the area from varying developers. At £700k we don't need to start on the wrong foot.
Thanks again
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I think you have made a very wise decision.
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Do not buy a house from Barwood Homes. They have no quality control, no time scales and no attention to details. The houses are on nice plots with reasonably good fittings BUT Barwood cannot build houses. I had the misfortune to buy one. It wasn’t finished when I moved in.
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Great feedback.
One of the reasons why I created this forum.
Prospective new homebuyers need to be warned what they are getting into.
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So long story short, I ended up buying the property. I spent alot of time looking at other properties and the location really drove me to stick with the decision here. From both a work and personal perspective it just ticked all the boxes that I couldn't find elsewhere. I'll try to summarise my experience so far, which overall has been positive but there have been issues which not all are resolved on.
Presale/conveyancing
The initial process, as discussed above, was generally good but it turned out that the salesman I interacted with told quite a few fibs not just to me but other house owners on the site. Barwood and their legal team worked work to give me confidence throughout the conveyancing process (as you'd expect). I was given plenty of access to the property and emails/phone calls were responded to very quickly, typically within a day.
They were not pushy at all when I delayed the sale process, actually I was 8 weeks over the reservation expiration date and they didn't push/threaten me once. Kept responding to my queries and trying to re-assure me on my outstanding queries.
I had no movement on the sale price but I was able to get £12.5k of extras thrown in which has given me a very high spec house overall.
Completion/Snagging
This was a little strange as I wasnt moving in on completion, and I still havent moved into the property (I am fortunate that i can have them resolve the issues). Because of this I had no formal handover or introduction to the property. They just gave me the keys and told me I had 7 days to send in the initial snagging list.
I found almost 100 issues quite quickly (from a building family and my mate has been running new build sites for many years) so again a little fortunate. Structural build quality of the house appears good (though time will tell) but the finishing is very poor as Unhappy notes. Generally I would say:
- Really sloppy mastic work (seriously, really bad)
- External doors and gates not hung properly
- Garage fascias not meeting brickwork (too short)
- Gutter joins missing
- Broken bricks and poor mortar work
- Lots of gaps hadn't been filled (extraction fans etc)
- Generally unclean
Decoration (painting) overall good. Cleanliness very poor - definitely not sparkle clean as you'd expect.
The site manager and customer care team however have been very good. Very responsive, site manager meets me at the property and regularly goes through the snagging list with me. When he has something will be fixed by X, it always has been. Of course, they are working through slower than I'd like but it's generally moving in the right direction. Neighbours have certainly had issues - one even had completely the wrong kitchen fitted ::)
Biggest negative for me has honestly been the lying salesman that it looks like all new owners have experienced. He told everyone that it was fibre to property, when its actually copper; told all of us it was a different warranty; others were told various other things which havent come true. The company has apologised but really what more can you expect them to do. Sales be sales.
It's been a mixed experience so far but overall a positive one. The proactive site manager helps of course. In the grand scheme of things my issues are on the more minor scale, so if things start to go wrong it'll be interesting to see how they respond.
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Things are getting interesting since posting this - I am now starting to have bigger issues and Barwood are struggling to resolve.
I will report back in a couple of weeks.
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Just wait until things get really interesting. All the houses on our development have roofs which do not comply with British Standards. I also concur with your comments regarding mastic, cleanliness etc. I have had 12 months of serious issues and would not recommend Barwood zoomed to my worst enemy. They are dreadful and cannot build houses. Indeed they should not be allowed anywhere near a building site.
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It's been some time since my last update and I wanted to finally get around to providing further details.
Barwood have actually been great - really easy to work with. The customer care team on email always respond within 48 hours.
I spotted several other issues (plumbing, tiling, electrics, alarm configuration) and everything was resolved within a week through their customer care team.
There is an outstanding problem with the rendering on the property which will be dealt with as part of the movement review after 12 months.
Of course, I haven't experienced any serious structural issues yet so cannot comment on how things would be handled in that space, but from the issues so far the experience has been positive. Once the movement review and rendering is looked at I'll post another update.
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STAY AWAY from this developer!
Marketing themselves as striving for quality and attention to detail.
Couldn't be further from the truth. They have used poor quality contractors, cut corners and lie continuously.
What should have been our dream home has been and continues to be a living nightmare!
Major issues with brickwork, mortar, electrics, plumbing and structural issues with roof.
Barwood will take your money and run away laughing.
Disgraceful company that ruin peoples' lives without any accountability or regulation.
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I couldn’t agree more. They are despicable. Their website is a complete fabrication of lies.
Their quality control and attention to detail is zero. Avoid at any cost.
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Great feedback and what this forum is all about.
Shaming the worst housebuilders and warning others not to make the same mistake.
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Hi, Great website btw. [Thanks... Admin}
Can anyone that has posted here kindly give me the location of the developments referred to so I can look up the detail on the planning process etc. Reason being we have Barwood Homes with permission to build 40 homes at the back of our land in Quainton.
They have submitted their housing plan and the detail couldn't be further from the requirements laid down by the inspector during the appeal process which we unfortunately obviously lost. Main issue being they didn't submit a drainage proposal and this is key issue, surprise!
We have until Monday to respond, any detail would be appreciated.
Thanks
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The Old Stour. Barwood did not adhere to drainage as in planning. Site flooded with run off from fields. They did address the problem AFTER the event.
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From what I have seen Barwood Homes may well build the houses but it may prove difficult to sell them!
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Coming back with an update - have fairly serious water ingress problems with a window.
Barwood's response so far has been prompt but relatively disappointing, first two visits to apply mastic everywhere (poorly, had to ask the guy to re-apply the second time) and the next visit is to seal the brickwork arches above the windows.
They have dealt with minor issues (e.g. fixings) very well.
Let's see what happens.
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STAY AWAY from this developer!
We were one of the many unlucky ones to purchase a property from this unprofessional developer.
We have endured 18 months of lies, stress and anguish trying to remitted the wealth of serious that have come with our new home. The battle continues, so I would advise anyone contemplating buying their dream home from Barwood.... walk away and save yourself the heartache.
Marketing themselves as striving for quality and attention to detail.
Couldn't be further from the truth. They have used poor quality contractors, cut corners and lie continuously.
What should have been our dream home has been and continues to be a living nightmare!
Major issues with brickwork, mortar, electrics, plumbing and structural issues with roof.
Barwood will take your money and run away laughing.
Disgraceful company that ruin peoples' lives without any accountability or regulation.
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Starting to have some very serious, frustrating issues.
Discard all my previous comments.
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Over the last month or so steps on my stair started to give way. As my home is not out of Barwood warranty I have to go through BLP.
Whilst BLP are helpful and responsive, they were not sure if this would be covered unless I was able to examine the staircase. As it's an internal staircase I had to either remove the utility drywall or cloakroom tiles and drywall to get access. I did this over the weekend and the results are interesting.
The staircase has definitely not been correctly fitted. The string on one wall is not fixed which explains why it moves every time someone goes up the stairs. It almost looks like the staircase was taken from another house and "retrofitted" into this one. I will get some pictures tomorrow.
Unbelievable....
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BLP warranty should not be asking you to demolish part of your own house to investigate.
They should be sending an inspector and use a borescope camera to investigate.
Why I always advise "No NHBC - don't buy"
You may like to ask Barwood Homes why they use BLP warranty and not NHBC?
It is good practice to fix the string to the adjacent wall but the lack of fixings may not be the reason.
The staircase could have got wet and the glue weakened.
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BLP warranty should not be asking you to demolish part of your own house to investigate.
They should be sending an inspector and use a borescope camera to investigate.
Why I always advise "No NHBC - don't buy"
You may like to ask Barwood Homes why they use BLP warranty and not NHBC?
It is good practice to fix the string to the adjacent wall but the lack of fixings may not be the reason.
The staircase could have got wet and the glue weakened.
Thank you -
BLP referred me to a loss adjuster who, despite me having got a professional quote (though they hadn't looked under the stairs at this point, only assessed from the sunken steps), said that they were not sure this would be covered without more evidence and the loss adjuster recommended I open up access to the void.
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(https://i.imgur.com/TiNd0Nh.png)
Fairly sure this is wrong and shouldn't be like that.
(https://i.imgur.com/7RtJHhB.png)
This is definitely wrong - the step should be in the recess. If I remove the wedge, the step falls down :o ;D
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What an absolute lash up. Without question done by "wood butchers"
Whilst a full width batten could be glued and screwed to the string for the kite winder, it really needs to be a new staircase in my opinion.
Loss adjuster aka "let us see if we can restrict the amount of the claim by as much as possible.
If it was my home I would write to BLP and say that unless they agree to replace the staircase you will send the photos to all national newspapers and inform them that BLP warranty think this isnt a justifiable claim and have been fobbing me off for X months.
Also you realluy should be claiming using the Financial Ombudsman Services. Tell BLP this too!
Good luck
For everyone else:
NO NHBC WARRANTY - NO SALE!
WALK AWAY!
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Thanks - very good info.
The staircase has been condemned, waiting for a response from BLP.
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Haven't been having much luck with the loss adjuster - even though the stairs have been condemned, the whole thing will need ripping out and replacing (but also decorating making good), AND the rep saying his 3-year old could do a better job - they are still saying the work seems too big and too costly and don't understand why it can't just be repaired in place.
After numerous exchanges they've finally agreed to have BLP send out a surveyor, hopefully that will get us somewhere.
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BTW - I've had 3 contractors out and all have said this should not be repaired in any case. One actually refused the work as he said its too much effort and he can't be arsed dealing with warranty.
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There comes a time when the cheapest and quickest solution is replace with new.
Don't bank on BLP being any help with this though!
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The saga ended well. Got a really good stair specialist to repair the stairs and they are better than when new.
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Your first post was in 2019.
Pleased it got sorted out albeit eventually.
Did BLP warranty come across or Barwood Homes?
Perhaps you bit the bullet and arranged it yourself which would explain your success.
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Via BLP, after much fighting.
I've sold the property now. I'll never buy or recommend a Barwood (now Cora) property.