New Homes

Charles Church: My Little House Horror

Tony — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 14:08:03 +0000

A nightmare that began with the purchase of a brand new home from Charles Church (part of the Persimmon Group, which includes Persimmon Homes, Westbury Partnership). The experience Charles Church gave us has been one we regret every day, we wish we had never seen the house, let alone bought it. Years on, we’re still unable to sell it – they avoid fixing it.

Shoddy Barratt Homes

Tony — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:39:45 +0000

RESIDENTS of a new Barratt estate claim the house-builder has gone against planning approval for their homes to save cash.

Paula Walter and John Davies (above), backed by other residents of The Haven, claim Barratt Homes promoted 37 top-of-the-range Selsdon properties for sale after being granted planning permission for the house type but actually built bottom-of-the-range Sutton homes.

Persimmon Homes Fined for Polluting Stream

Tony — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:59:23 +0000

Persimmon Homes and two other smaller developers Allison Homes and Stamford Homes have been fined for polluting a stream in Deeping St Nicholas stream with raw sewage. The companies were fined £8000 at Grantham Magistrates’ Court last week and were ordered to pay costs.

New Homes Too Small

Tony — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:45:07 +0000

Barratt Homes leads the way with the smallest home in the UK – ‘Manhattan pods’ in Harlow have only 34 metres square of space, and a living room measuring a mere 3 x 3.6 metres.

CABE conducted the research with the owners of 2,500 private new homes, to explore views on the adequacy of internal space.

“The majority of householders – 57 per cent – said they did not have enough storage space, while 72 per cent said they did not have enough space for three small bins required for proper recycling.”

http://www.cabe.org.uk/publications/space-in-new-homes

Deliquent housebuilders fail again

Tony — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 22:05:07 +0000

The housebuilding industry has failed again to get its house in order. First, they failed to improve customer service as set out in the Barker Review, which led to OFT Market Study. Now the industry has failed to keep to the agreed deadline and the OFT will be recommending that the Government introduces legislation to protect consumers. You can read more here

Barratts Rondabout Blunder

Tony — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 21:29:53 +0000

The housebuilders struggle to build quality homes so please don’t let them meddle with the roads. Nice one Barratts

Buckinghamshire County Council spokesman Si Khan said an inspector would be visiting the site to check guidelines had been met but added the junction was the responsibility of Barratts as part of the original planning application.

She added: “We’ll be making sure Barratt Homes meets the criteria and guidelines set out and we will be working hard to make sure the situation is rectified as soon as possible.”

Barratt’s technical director Phil Jones said: “The signs saying ’roundabout in use’ is being covered.

“We envisage the road markings being painted in the next few days and the roundabout will be in use shortly after that.”

New Build Prices Dropped 50%

Tony — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 14:59:01 +0000

According to Paul Farrow of the Telegraph new build house prices began to fall in 2006 and not 2007. He give an example of a home in East Anglia that was valued at £246,995 in April 2006 and is worth £225,000 today. A reasonable fall of 9pc according to the Nationwide House Price Index calculator. He argues that this online tools does not differentiate between a new-build and older homes. In reality the home would be worth as little as £120,000, if it were a new build.

Barratt Property 19% Drop

Tony — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:39:07 +0000

The Guardian has reported today that Barratt Homes have dropped the prices of their homes by 19% over the last year. The outlook for the company does not look good and they have moved to cut costs by closing their final salary pension scheme. According to the CEO, Mark Clare, site visitors are also down by 4% compared to this time last year, but there has been about a 10% increase since last month. The region worst hit according to Clare is the Midlands. Read more here.

Redrow Homes Defect Woes

Tony — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:28:04 +0000

Since 2004 the residents of the Redrow Poets Wood housing development in Streetly have been fighting to get their new homes brought up to standard. Some of the homes have been knocked down and rebuilt but the problems persist.

One resident of the estate, Veronica Fitzgerald, exchanged at the beginning of 2004 but had to wait two years to move in while Redrow rebuilt the property.

The NHBC has received more that 20 complaints from residents of the estate with faults including loose tiles, dodgy light fittings and flooding.

You can read more about the story here.

Boris Makes Affordable London Homes Better Than Private Homes

Tony — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:48:15 +0000

It has always been the case that residents of affordable housing get a better quality of home as the snagging is addressed in the housing association’s contract with the build. Private buyers do not have this luxury and struggle for months and years to get their home finished to standard.

Now Boris Johnson, the Major of London, has published a guide for the design of all new public funded London homes being built from 2011. Residents of of affordable housing will get:

better space between and around buildings
better shared areas including car parking, a major source of complaint for new build buyers, and cycle and waste storage
new minimum room sizes – 10% more than the 1961 Parker Morris benchmark
And much more…

Although, this is a great initiative why does it not cover private homes and why only London?