Backhouse Housing  Omdömen 26

We first visited the sales team at Blunsdon back in August 24, looking at plots that we never thought we would be ready in time for. However the sales team were superb! So nice and had time for us where other developers pied us off as not ready straight away. We were warmly told that this would be a different experience and they were not wrong

Fast forward to April 25 and we reserved and exchanged with a delayed completion to suit us for end of June. In that time betwern, the team were awesome and let us bring our disabled daughter along to get familiar with her new house and room which has.made what has been a busy week so much calmer as she has settled unbelievably well.

The house was spotless! And the couple of snags we raised, most have been completed or booked with the trades for this week already.

BIG shout out to Tina in the sales office, she is amazing and been so helpful and kind throughout. And to Phil on site, who's been quick to get resolution for us and always cheery.

Blundson development is beautiful and well thought out and solid built, soo happy in our lovely new home

Dreadful company!!
3 worst issues to keep it short as you could write for days.

1. 2 years after moving into my house I'm still living on a building site when all 40 homes were completed over 1 year ago. We still have no park/green space and the little work they have done to that space is absolutely abysmal and nothing like what they sold in the sales brochure. Add to the fact they were deliberately ambiguous about future buildings when they knew about future houses being built by the same person they purchased the land from, shows the way in which they operate.

2. Employees/staff were given first refusal on plots but the bad part is they were given modifications and extras that nobody else could get. Then proceeded to flaunt them on social media sites whilst everybody else was made to pay for the most basic of upgrades.

3. Aftercare is SHOCKING!!! We went through 4 sales agents in the time it took to build the house. Now when you follow up with the aftercare team you would think you're emailing toddlers. It takes weeks to get a response, they want a ton of pictures etc and like most firms try any way to wriggle out of responsibility and actually helping.

You want to be positive about a house that cost half a million pounds but the reality is when the service is so shocking and you get lied to constantly you begin to question everything about the company.

I am afraid I cannot recommend this company. The reason for this is due to their customer service after being handed over from site.

The part time customer representative assigned to the site is passive aggressive in responses for no reason. Does not respond to emails without chasing and then clearly has not read the previous response properly (if at all) . Any requests for escalation are ignored.

The people on site are very nice and help where they can. The houses are nicely designed. However their "after care" from their representative seems to consist of passing the responsibility if able to and if not, doing their upmost to do nothing. They seem solely focused to protect the company and not to provide a service. Whilst i would expect the former I would expect the latter to be important also.

I have spoken to one other person there who is assigned to another site who seemed to be more helpful in resolving an issue. This seems to be the exception however and not the rule.

Therefore, I would advise anyone to think carefully before buying here. Make sure as many issues found are resolved in the initial period where you are supported directly by the site. As this will be the only time you don't have to fight to even get them to respond nevermind resolve issues.

You’ll see I left a glowing review a few weeks after we moved into our new build. Unfortunately the aftercare falls down less than a year after you move in. From then, customer care are rude, defensive and combative. Default response is to say any issues are not their responsibility, leaving us to fight over everything via NHBC. Such a shame and has really marred our experience and left us with several unresolved quality issues. Beware, they will only be friendly and helpful and take care of their responsibilities for as long as it takes you to leave the good review they ask for.

One of the most professional, helpful, friendly Company’s I have ever met. They go above the call of duty to help and satisfy every potential and existing customer. Their backup service is second to none after completion of sale and ongoing after move-in. Their show house team as well as their building team cannot do enough to help. Their build is of a very high standard.

Brendon Bezuidenhout has been incredible since the day my sister and I met him when buying our first home. He has been extremely accommodating always going above and beyond for us, nothing is ever too much! Thank you Brendon for being so easily accessible all the time and making anything possible, we really appreciate your hard work :)

DO NOT BUY FROM BACKHOUSE!

I had seen others say it, but if I could select a minus score I would. I can also see that one of their developments seems to be creating some happy customers, but don't be fooled.

Two years after receiving payment for this poor excuse for a property, I continue to chase snags. There is no sense of urgency, they expect you to be available for appointments, but then they don't show up. Absolutely no one seems to give a damn, regardless of how high up you go to try and escalate your issues.

The build quality is extremely poor. The site is a mess, we have had two ‘portaloos’ outside our property for a year and the road, is way behind schedule, so there is constant dust and dirt flying around.

I can honestly say that I regret the day I signed to purchase this house. I will never buy a new property again, as this experience has left deep scars. It is hard to convey in a few short lines how appalling this company is. From sale to aftercare, this is undoubtably, the most incompetent group of people I have encountered. This has been the most stressful and disappointing purchase of my life. Moving into a new home should be a positive experience, but it has just made me ill.

I do not understand why Backhouse has no desire to finish their earlier developments, both snag lists and tidy up the site. I also don't understand how they can be satisfied that they have so many unhappy customers. But trust me, they do.

I urge you not to proceed with any thoughts of buying a house from this company. Despite the shiny show house and glossy brochures, the reality could not be further from the truth. Do not buy from Backhouse.

We’ve just moved into a Backhouse home in Highworth. Our expectations have been exceeded on every level. The whole process has been made so easy. The build is far superior than we ever imagined. The snagging (insanely minimal) has been jumped straight on by the team.

Jim and Carolin are such a brilliant team, they have been instrumental in making this whole process seamless and stress free for us. We would highly recommend Backhouse and feel that we would only ever buy a Backhouse home in the future.

We've just moved in to Backhouse Highworth and have had a great customer experience. From initially viewing the show home spontaneously last summer (we weren't even looking to move!) we moved into our new home last week and all I can say is the Backhouse team have been excellent. Carolyn has been the oracle of all things home buying! Thank you for letting us visit the site so often while the house was in build!

The site staff again have been excellent, the site manager Jim providing a thorough overview of the house prior to moving in.

We used all the recommended Solicitors, mortgage advisors and again the process has been slick.

I can't comment on the snagging process yet, but looking hard for anything significant to report and we've only been in 7 days.

The house is great, space, light, really well designed and finished.....that's why we bought one!

Thank you backhouse for our lovely home. Buying off plan can be daunting, but we were helped every bit of the way through the whole process by Tina who was great on the Midsomer Norton Site. We moved in a few weeks ago and love it. The thought that has gone into everything is second to none. It's spacious, well-appointed and expertly finished. All the staff we have dealt with have been so helpful. Once again thank you Backhouse.

I see a lot of people have left poor reviews about Backhouse, but I believe this is on some of their previous sites from when the company first started out. I have moved into a home on their Midsomer Norton Site and it is absolutely perfect. The quality of build is outstanding, some very small items which were sorted straight away and the staff have been amazing. Tina in Sales was absolutely great throughout the whole process and since we have moved in the after care has been amazing. The home is so beautifully designed and so easy to live in. We couldn’t be happier! The grass is such good quality and they have not cut any corners. I think a couple of their historical sites may be the reason for some bad reviews but honestly, this house is just amazing. Cannot recommend them enough!

If I could score minus for this company I would! OK the look of the houses are nice but this company has no experience behind them. We have had so many serious problems with this house and no one cares at all. We had water coming through above bifolds in Oct last year. Now we are in March and still have three gaping holes in the brick work of the external of the property. All through the worst of winter with heating pouring out of our house. Even one of their own contracts managers said back in January this should have been fixed two months prior. We have holes all over our house where they have tried to locate leaks. They visit, can't locate leak then leave. We are left constantly chasing them. HONESTLY DO NOT BUY FROM THIS BUILDER - YOU WILL BE LEFT HEART BROKEN AND AND WISHING YOU'D BOUGHT A PERSIMMON HOME! And we all know what reputation they have so just about sums up Backhouse housing. Should not be allowed to caring on trading.

Just bought our forever home! 🤩🤩 couldn’t be happier with the whole journey. So hands on, great team of people helping us throughout this journey and now we’ve moved in we couldn’t be happier. Such a beautiful home. The sheer space that comes with these houses is amazing, the ceilings are high, each room feels light and spacious. We are over the moon with our property and the location is perfect 💖 thank you backhouse for bringing our dream to life. 🥂🎉

Don't buy from backhouse badly built never fix problems customer care is a waste of time just give you lies lies lies nearly ever House on our site have major problems road not finished last House was finished a yr ago potholes everywhere they take people's hard earned money then run awful

Myself, my husband and our two children moved into our property on 19th February 2021. We were looking forward to living in our brand new home and experiencing the finish and quality of the homes that Backhouse prides themselves on. I regret to say that what we have actually experienced is nearly 2 years of stress, anxiety and disruption due to a badly-built and defective home.

Below is a list of defects that we inherited from Backhouse. I haven’t included the list of normal cosmetic snags, which (the list is endless) I would accept is normal when moving into a new build home (e.g. bad paintwork, loose door handles)

- Large hump in flooring in front of the kitchen island. Trades attended to take up Karndean, rub down the hump and lay flooring back down but the hump was still there. Trades attended again to repeat. Flooring improved but uneven in several places. Issue was left due to disruption caused and our exasperation.
- 1st Leak from ensuite shower due to defective plumbing – hole cut in kitchen ceiling to fix pipe work.
- 2nd leak in ensuite shower from holes in grout – regrouted
- 3rd leak from flood in the ensuite bathroom due to outside drains being blocked with cement/rubble.
- 4th leak from ensuite shower due to mastic being poorly applied – mastic redone.
- 5th leak from family shower due to defective plumbing – hole cut in kitchen ceiling to fix pipe work.
- 6th leak from family shower due to holes in grout – regrouted.
- 7th leak in downstairs hallway coming from the wall just below the ceiling – this was due to defective plumbing. Hole cut in wall to fix pipe work.
- Large crack across tile in downstairs WC made when the toilet was installed. Remedial works were carried out by 2 “man in a van” organised by Backhouse. Tiles used had been discontinued meaning all tiles had to be replaced. The first man in a van was called Phil who applied mastic by licking his dirty finger and used it as a tool. The second man was called Dave who removed Phil’s mastic work and replaced it with an equally bad job. Backhouse then arranged a professional sealant company to attend to come who sorted the issue.

Below is the current list of serious building and structural defects that has come to light very recently, which all need investigating and rectifying:
- Leak coming in at the top of our bifold door (middle) due to missing or incorrect fitting of cavity tray.
- Water has penetrated the wood under our front and back porch, it's currently rotting away.
- Side wall under flat roof has damp patches where flat roof has failed (most of the houses with flat roofs on the estate have the same issue)
- Windows in the two front bedrooms and master bedrooms are leaking and condensation levels on all upstairs windows are unacceptable.
- Flooring in bedroom 2 to be investigated as gives a hollow sound when walking on it – much different sound from the rest of the upstairs.
An 8th leak has also been present and unresolved since January 2021:
- 8th Leak coming from ensuite shower causing the skirting board in master bedroom on the other side of the wall that backs onto the shower to bulge and warp. Squelching sound from floor in front of shower tray after shower has been used.
- Bath panel in family bathroom is made of MDF and has warped.

The lack of communication from Backhouse astounds me. I feel we have been left in the dark time after time with no time frames of resolving the defects and no plan communicated.

Yes, the sales people are very lovely to you when you are in the process of handing over nearly half a million. Yes, the site manager can't do enough for you in the first few weeks when you move in - I'm afraid it's all down hill from there. Customer care are non existent. If you are thinking of buying a Backhouse home, come and have a look at Callaway Gardens 3 years on from starting the development and talk to the people on the estate. I know that if I had the time back and knew what was ahead, I wouldn't buy from Backhouse again.

I have read the other reviews here and have been meaning to write about our experiences for a while. We’ve had a really positive experience so far since moving in early November 2022 to a Longhouse on the Highworth development. After an incredibly stressful time with our buyers’ online solicitor, we finally moved in (please never use an online solicitor, it’s just not worth saving a few quid and WILL cause huge stress, if not cause your purchase/sale to fail! We used the excellent Bower & Bailey in Swindon who we have used before - worth every penny!).

We’re absolutely in love with the design and location of the Longhouse, it suits us perfectly with loads of natural light and high ceilings giving this four-bedroom house a feeling of real spaciousness. If fact, many developers would have crammed in a fifth bedroom. We love it so much! Christmas was spent with the log burner roaring and the family enjoying the house.

We initially saw the house early in 2022 - it’s certainly a different and modern design and it was clear there are many design touches that you don’t often get in the other houses we’ve seen or bought. This was our third new build and we’ve also designed and lived through major refurbishment projects so have a fair bit of experience. As soon as I looked around the show house, I was blown away, it was perfect for our needs.

The sales office staff were always friendly and helpful and let us visit so many times. even we thought we were pushing it a bit but were so keen to get in. As we weren’t too far away, we would often pop by in the evenings too, just to look at what we would be moving into eventually.

Months later we were in and quickly furnished and got the house the way we wanted it (many months of dreaming and working out what we were going to do). We were given a 7-day snagging with site. The assistant site manager we dealt with was always really friendly and helpful and even gave us extra bits to help with our DIY such as when we were changing a few kitchen cabinets around. The snagging was quickly sorted via site tradespeople and was mostly minor decoration items. So far, nothing has been an issue and the majority has been sorted within a few weeks. We still have a few items but are waiting for better and warmer weather.

I’ve only raised one issue with the central customer care team who responded but have yet to organise a resolution (some marks on a very large bathroom mirror). So I can’t comment much on how good they are just yet.

I think it really comes down to who’s managing the site and how they manage the trades. Luckily it seems we have a fabulous team here. We have also bought outright and I know from previous houses that some of our old neighbours had a terrible time with shared ownership houses as the housing association had to log snags with the developer and that caused massive delays and items not dealt with.

I had a couple of tradespeople who came to resolve some minor issues and remarked that they thought the houses were really well-built. One of them who was working on site here said it was the first site and company that he would actually consider buying a house from himself. Pretty good recommendation :)

I know this review is a little bit gushing in places and someone might think I’m being paid to write this - I’m not (unfortunately 🤣) Have a look at my other reviews - I like to give praise where it’s due and I certainly won’t hold back when I’ve had poor service or product!

Well done Backhouse and the Highworth team - FABULOUS house, great staff and a really well-built house 😁

I’ve held off on this review for two years, but I have given up on hoping Backhouse might turn things around for me. My advice to anybody looking at a Backhouse property would be to view the Callaway Gardens marketing material, and then come and visit the unfinished site in real life - and speak to the residents here. Don’t be fooled by this company’s skilled sales service, because it’s all downhill after that. Backhouse continues to post across their social media accounts about their values on green spaces improving mental health, whilst simultaneously diminishing mine. Poorly built, poorly designed, and incompetent aftercare.

False Advertising:

I was lied to about the property I was purchasing, in regard to what would be outside my front door. I signed off on plan diagrams which showed greenery and plants outside (a visual of this has been used on their marketing material everywhere), and then at some point throughout the buying process this was changed to a PLAY PARK and I was not notified! I would not have purchased the house had I known this. This is two metres from my front door and affects around 8 other homes who were not aware of this either.

Poor aftercare (almost non-existent):

After two years, most of my snags have not been fixed and those that have been started have been left in a really bad state. Multiple tradesmen have been sent on the same job, only to come and make the issue worse and then disappear. I’ve been left with a door with the most horrific mastic, and no finished fittings around the lock. As for the quality of all the other workmanship across my house, it’s very poor; bumpy floors, wonky ceilings and radiators. Getting a response from customer service is rare, and when you do it’s almost always an empty promise and another lie.

Riddled with design flaws:

For what appears to be a design-led company through its good branding and polished marketing material, there are multiple design flaws in their actual houses where they’ve prioritised profits over good design. There are kitchen cupboards that knock into each other, doors which knock into lightbulbs, thermostats placed in bizarre areas, three ugly drain covers in the garden, a driveway which doesn’t actually fit two cars (with you being able to get in and out the car or access the bin store)….the list goes on and on. Still, these are the least of my problems with Backhouse in comparison to the rest.

Unfinished site development is a safety hazard:

Since selling their last house on the development, coincidentally Backhouse has not come back to finish the communal areas of the site. We’ve been left with skips full of rubbish, areas fenced off and materials dumped everywhere. The roads and pavements have not been finished and are unsafe for children to be playing on (raised drains are a tripping hazard) and not okay for wheelchair users either. As for the roads, which have no tarmac, multiple residents are experiencing damage to their vehicles. We received a letter to explain the reason why they were not finished with a timeline of when it would be (and for a second I thought they might follow through on this one, but no, it’s still like driving on Salisbury plain here).

Backhouse developments do not match their high-end marketing material and my experience with them after two years has been nothing but disappointment.

About as much use as a parachute on a submarine

Having to constantly chase them for snags to be solved even now 11 months after moving in. This company should stop building new houses until they have solved all the issues on their previous developments. There does not appear to be enough staff to deal with after sales care and snagging issues. We are left feeling that no one there cares once they have taken your money. They delete comments from unsatisfied customers on Facebook and don’t respond to negative reviews never mind actually reaching out or visiting us to put right the issues!

If you look at a new house and the developers are backhouse…run, run away as fast as you can!!! Their aftercare is shocking, they constantly lie and just tell you anything to get you off their backs. They constantly fail to honour the snag list and I have been waiting 18 months, whenever I’ve had a meeting recently to talk about issues they just don’t turn up to the meetings. They don’t finish off sites leaving it a complete mess with skips and machinery lying about. The road surface is full of massive pot holes and is very dangerous and full of stones and rubble, we have had a few punctures already! Backhouse say the road surface has been heavily delayed by the council but Backhouse won’t temporarily patch or clear the masses of stones to even make it safe. Also they talk about innovative designs but our house has been designed by someone who hasn’t a scooby!! light switches in the most bizarre places or non where you need them. When I come into the lounge from outside I have to walk through the dark lounge and into the kitchen to turn on the lounge light then walk back into the lounge. So you think a solution would be to put a lamp on by the entrance door but there are no plugs that side of the house so the nearest plug is the entrance to the kitchen. Also in the utility only 1 single plug socket for the washing machine so no other plug for microwave or iron or anything else needed for a utility room. Also a family sized 3 bedroom house and all the space they left for the fridge freezer was big enough to fit a skinny sized freezer only which cannot open fully as it’s right next to the window and the window ledge dents the front door of the freezer. This company is so poor and I fail to understand how on earth they won any awards?! It’s not just me either most of the Callaway Garden residents are not happy. They are a shocker! You are sold a dream in a glossy brochure and end up living a nightmare!