Cora Omdömen 210

We recently moved into a new Barwood home on the Cherwell rise estate and recent wind gusts have blown many of the roofing tiles off the houses in the estate including ours. Clearly the building standard is not fit for requirements for this to happen in the first instance however what is totally unacceptable is the fact Barwood are unwilling to do the right thing and rectify the situation.

Avoid this developer at all costs. You have been warned.

“We have been at the Cherwell Rise site for two months now and are very happy. The team on the ground and in the offices here are wonderful and extremely helpful. Site manager Bill is very efficient and has always been on the end of the phone to answer questions and pop round to take a look at anything we have had questions about. Our experience of Barwood homes has been excellent”.

I have found the Harwood Home staff extremely helpful, particularly Jayne in the sales office. She worked hard with the solicitors to push the house sale through as quickly as possible. This enabled me to move before Christma on 18th December. The site manager has also been very accommodating, helping with snagging issues. I'm very pleased with my new house, it feels like home already and is just perfect thank you.

As the title depicts, 18 months after completion and I’m still battling with Barwood Homes to rectify serious faults with the brickwork and mortar on the home. I was told by the head of customer care ‘Claire Hayward’ that there was nothing wrong with it. Even though I could scrape out large amounts of the mortar with my bare finger nail. I’ve had to commission RICS inspections and It has now come to the point where I’m having to take legal action against Barwood Homes to carry out the appropriate remedies. Search for Millbrook Grange and check out the pictures linked to the review to see for yourself. Also take a look at the previous positive reviews, almost all of them were ‘invited’ by Barwood Homes to place a review. Don*t fall foul of clever marketing ...just DON’T buy from them!

Cherwell Rise, Tackley.

My review is based on the experience we have received so far from Barwood Homes.

We reserved in August 2020 with a view to exchange by October and move in shortly after. We encountered some sizeable delays with the sale of our current house and Barwood were understanding and not at all pushy. The sales team checked in with us regularly and were genuinely empathetic with our situation. Hats off to both Debbie, Georgina and London for all of their support through this.

On completion day, Debbie greeted us with our keys and a huge smile and was just as excited as us to hand over our new home. We also met Bill, the site manager, who was courteous and welcoming to the development.

We bought a new home, built in a field, from scratch. We understand there will be problems. It’s how Barwood rectify them that matters. At the time of writing this, the very few snags/defects we have, have been handed over to the site manager to action and I am hopeful/confident that, if the experience we have had so far is anything to go by, they will be rectified in a timely fashion.

Thanks to everyone at Barwood, we love our new home!

A new loft/service hatch was made to size and fitted by Roy after we noticed we did not have one to access wires for connecting a tv aerial. The ready made hatch was too big therefore one had to be made on site within the day including collection of additional materials from a diy store. Job well done. Thank you.

Fantastic, genuine and helpful house builders. I love my new build. The quality and finish is outstanding. The sales team and after sales are really helpful and always available to deal with any questions. Highly recommend.

Our journey with buying a new Barwood home has been wonderful, from first visiting the beautiful development in the lovely village of Tackley we immediately fell in love with the style of the houses and it’s surroundings.

With many house types available our sales advisor took us through every home so we could really work out exactly what we wanted and make comparisons simply.

After reserving the support was excellent with regular updates on our home stages & details on how the purchase was going.

Once moving day arrived, we were greeted by the site Manager Bill & his team who handed over the keys. It was quite obvious that Bill & everyone on his team are hugely proud of their work on Cherwell Rise and I think that shows through the quality of our home. There are a lot of bigger new home builders out there that cut corners & build homes that feel flimsy and cheap but Barwood homes are well thought out and built to a high standard compared to others.

Nothing was too much trouble for Bill and his team, and any snags that we had (which were absolutely tiny) were rectified immediately.

We’re very happy & were so pleased to be settled in our new home. We would recommend Barwood to everyone.

Barwood Homes are simply the worst company I have ever dealt with, their customer service both during and after purchase has been appalling and they made a very difficult house move for me personally a hundred times harder. They are rude and quite frankly aggressive in their manner and don't treat their buyers like human beings let alone customers - they had me in tears due to the way they treated me during my house purchase. They fitted the wrong kitchen in my house and then told me it was tough - I had to battle for weeks to get them to compensate me, eventually the kitchen company did but Barwood didn't. They make out as if they are doing you a favour when they eventually repair some of the faults that was their poor workmanship in the first place - others they just simply refuse to do, despite doing similar repairs in other houses. Even when I have escalated my complaints to the Managing Director I still don't get a response - there is nowhere to go. AVOID buying a house from Barwood Homes at all cost.

Pretty much echoing what everyone else is stating to be honest. Well presented house but 'no pride in their appearance'.

Poor management from the start (broken promises about tiling the bathrooms fully despite having it in writing twice- from Gill Masters administration manager), they never fulfilled this commitment and left my bathrooms with considerably less than what was promised.

Even worse customer service and to top it off pure denial of liability when it comes to acknowledging serious building related issues. 'Sold as seen' was one of the responses I got! The cheek of it!!

Made to move in 4 days before Xmas and made it clear that I would not be moving in after that date. Not the most amicable of communication and not a preferred date / time to move in - was dealing with Steven Allenby at the time.

No handover papers when I moved in (and still none ) - so no idea how any of the heating or electrics worked or were laid out. Extra light switches that are not connected to anything. Underfloor heating was connected the wrong way round - the thermostats in each room controlled rooms which were on the other side of the house!

No warranty details left with appliances so had difficulty registering them.

No Utility box keys so couldn't access the meter readings.

Carpets were laid with lumps of plaster still underneath the underlay - presumably from where the selected contractors could not be bothered to clean up and / or remove it.

Shower Tray in ensuite removed and replaced as it was pooling in one corner. This then lead to further problems with mastic, grout cracking, rusting of screws and ultimately LEAKS!!! ... which then lead to having to cut out sections of ceiling downstairs to undertake my OWN investigation of the issue at my OWN cost of what happened before Barwood took any responsibility or action.

They use VADO bathroom appliances which from my experience have been nothing short of complete rubbish - having to change shower controls and taps already within two years of living here due to moving parts not performing well (and no its not limescale, as they keep telling me, as I have a watersoftner installed for this exact purpose).

Constant water ingress in the garage, even in light rain.... but that's 'ok' apparently as its 'not a living area' according to Claire the Customer Services Director.... Finally got Barwood to fit a weather strip at the entrances of said garage which wasn't even installed correctly - it STILL let water around the edge of the installation - but according to Barwood that is also ok!!!

Green park (grassy) areas around the site have not well maintained whilst under management of Barwood, extreme thatch and weeds make it look unsightly and Barwood will not do anything about this although they have been requested on several occasions. Carparks and pathways also remain unfinished for over a year.

The list goes on.... an on.... and on....

Barwood seem to think it is acceptable to assess and give feedback to complaints with little or no understanding the root cause from the comfort of their desks without doing site inspections to check the work required or even when / if work has been completed to a competent level.

They would even refuse to look at issues at my home when their manned Showroom was 5 doors up the road on the same street.

An awful company who are morally bankrupt and making our lives a misery.
They are out only to make a quick buck.
Not a soul on the entire estate has anything good to say about them.
Houses are nicely designed but it is essential not to fall into the trap of buying one only to later discover the most fundamental of flaws.
Barwood simply do not know how to build and after buying you will get nothing other than hassle and denials of responsibility.
Keep away from them and avoid serious stress.

they don't deserve even 1 star. can't build houses. no quality control and Don't care even with major problems. stairs coming of wall garden path not finished. front path not Tarmac and many other things from no gate to lights not working fence falling over and been over 5 months and no return phone calls. stay away from buying anything from these bodge artistsartists Don't give them your money.

The so called Barwood Customer Care team are complete joke. We love our new house but dealing with the Customer Care team can be very stressful and is totally spoiling Barwoods reputation. A lack of basic building best practices with pointless penny pinching means work has to be redone multiple times ultimately costing more and causing needless frustration. I haven't met a contractor working for Barwood that has a single good thing about their dealings with the Customer care team and Claire Hayward specifically. I'm very surprised the Barwood leadership team don't take action to deal with underlying issues and consistently poor feedback that will be rightfully damaging to their business until resolved.

Awful company who lie constantly, make promises but never stick to them. After living in our home for over 2 years still don't have our parking finished and have to endure the noise of diggers and stone cutters daily 2 years on, they are only building 16 homes ridiculous. Poor design for 12 months had to drag out bins through our kitchen, now we can access the back they have to be dragged up 10 steps, as they didn't make the bin storage area deep enough. Constantly get blocked into out 'temp' parking despite assurances to the contrary. Avoid at all costs.

Don't buy from Barwood Homes , you will regret it . From the moment you move in the aftercare is a battle of them trying to deny its their fault .

I don't do reviews normally , but i needed to just warn people . If there is any doubt , don't do it :(