written by ShaunCoyne298 on 15/02/2024
This review is based upon our recent experience with Persimmon SW. We engaged with Persimmon SW regarding a local development. The sales agent was friendly and helpful. Following a couple of viewings of the show home, we decided to proceed with their part-exchange scheme. The paperwork was a rapidly deployed and not every aspect was clearly explained. We were then presented with a £500 reservation fee. Following payment by card, it was mentioned that we needed to provide gas and electricity certificates and engage a solicitor for conveyancing. Obtaining a gas and electricity certificate was a cost of around £200 to us. Which we paid. Engaging the solicitor attracted an immediate cost of £180 for search fees. Following the electricity safety report (which was not perfect) we were told by the sales agent that we would need our card ready again as head office will be asking for £500 for a home-buyer survey on our existing property. Read section 8 of the part exchange agreement - it states that the buyer bears the cost of any survey Persimmon deem necessary and the buyer is liable to remediate findings on their property where it affects the resale value. Our current house is not a show home - it’s an older property - sort of why we wanted to part ex! The reality of this dawned upon us that Persimmon could ask for numerous surveys at cost to us, only to either back out or demand that we fix before completion. It was at this point that the part exchange felt to be loaded heavily in Persimmon's favour, especially when the new property was already overpriced and tied into property management fees, single broadband supplier and other 'costs.' We informed the local agent that we wanted to back out of the process and instructed our solicitors to stop. The fees were not explained up-front and fully before signing, the burden of surveys and possible outcome was not clearly articulated to us. Over ten days later we are still waiting for our refund of the booking fee which it is stated we are entitled to. The regional sales manager, keeps stating that numerous directors have to sign off on it - remember the booking fee ? A mere £500. We have sunk nearly £1000 for nothing. This review is based upon our recent experience with Persimmon SW. Do you research, check out review sites like this, Facebook etc there are other who had a dream and were left with a nightmare.
written by yuPittman26 on 14/12/2023
I would honestly give no stars if possible. If anyone is reading this and thinking about buying a persimmon home PLEASE DO NOT!!! It will be the worst mistake of your life. The whole company have been an utter disaster, we moved in over 2 years ago and are still waiting on work to be done, which my husband has just been told that won't be getting done because we are now out of warranty, even though we reported these issues when we moved in. My husband sent a very strongly worded email and received one back, saying you are lucky I am not someone who takes things to heart else no work would be getting done (very professional). Everything about this company is an utter disgrace. We have used out life savings thinking this will be our forever family home, but it has been nothing but a disaster, and caused nothing but stress and mental health issues for my whole family. STAY AWAY!!
written by Moodyny498 on 02/07/2023
Apologies but this is a long post. Hopefully it will help someone avoid the issues I have faced, and will bring attention within Persimmon to the sheer arrogance and incompetence of their team in Durham. Please feel free to email me if you are considering buying or have reserved a Persimmon Home in the Durham area and you would like to see first hand what they consider to be a ‘reasonable standard’ or ‘within tolerance’ In short, I purchased a newbuild home from Persimmon in the Durham area in early 2022 and since then they have been an utter disgrace. Their Customer Care Team are refusing to action numerous defects and issues, the vast majority of which I identified within the 7 or 30 day windows. I still have over 200 defects with my home, which would likely cost me tens of thousands of pounds to rectify, money I simply do not have. The issues with my home are too numerous to list here, however I will provide a small sample. There is wonky brickwork to the front of the house which is extremely unsightly and will greatly impact the resale value. The brickwork is also wonky elsewhere around the house and is covered in excess mortar. The pointing is terrible and needs completely redoing. The shower cubicle has not been fitted correctly so it keeps on leaking, despite Persimmon staff trying to use sealant to cover up the bad job. The tiling is wonky, the tiles aren’t glazed properly so there is dark material showing through on the edge of the grouting. The grouting in the shower keeps on cracking as the tiling hasn’t been done correctly. The rear fence has not been placed on the true boundary as the Durham staff couldn’t be bothered asking the existing houses if they could replace the fence, resulting in a strip of wasteland that is full of weeds that are spilling through to my garden and leading to rats getting into my garden and my neighbour’s garden to the rear. The kitchen has not been fitted correctly with numerous damaged and wonky cupboards and doors. The Silestone worktop has marks all over it that apparently I’ve caused, despite it being practically impossible to damage Silestone! The whole house needs redecorating, all electrical sockets and switches have paint on them or are damaged. The driveway isn’t level with the concrete edging with huge gaps where it meets the house and no material between the bricks (all of the grit washed out). The boiler is so loud that when it kicks in on a night it’s impossible to sleep in two of the bedrooms. There is so much more on top of this. The only thing on this list that Persimmon Durham’s Interim Managing Director has agreed to is getting my own contractor in to redecorate, but that can’t be planned until the rest of the issues are sorted. This is quite literally the worse new build I have ever seen. I have visited numerous sites when deciding where to buy with several different builders in the North East and at no point did I see any of the obvious errors from their team’s sloppy workmanship and negligent quality control. Persimmon refused to let me have access to the house until a few days prior to completion, so I was unable to perform my own quality control. I was only allowed in a few days before completion, by which point I identified numerous issues right away that I was told would be sorted, however many were not or were completely bodged. Persimmon say they have no record of this; however I have numerous emails that confirm that I constantly flagged issues and concerns and the responses I received. Upon getting the keys in early 2022 and being able to spend some time in the house I found numerous issues, the number of which have continually grown as more mistakes become apparent during my normal life. The vast majority were flagged within the 7 days and 30 days period as per Persimmon’s terms. I have flagged these issues as soon as I can on all occasions. I have made my home available to Persimmon every day for the first month, and two days a week every week afterwards (with the exception of my recovery from surgery). The team have continually been dismissive of major issues, and have focused their attention on small jobs only. Many of these small jobs still remain outstanding due to being rushed or poor workmanship. To complicate matters, in late 2021 I was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect called a bicuspid aortic valve, and I was told that I would need to have open heart surgery to replace the defective valve to stop it causing further damage to my heart, so I was placed on the surgery waiting list. I flagged this to two members of the Durham team when they visited my home to discuss the numerous defects soon after moving in, and explained that I needed the issues to be resolved prior to my operation so that I could focus on my recovery and getting back to normal afterwards. I raised this point again and again for several months, with the operation potentially taking place at any time, and yet major issues were ignored with only minor issues worked on. The whole reason I continued with buying a new build after my diagnosis was because I wanted an easy and stress-free move, so that I didn’t have to deal with lots of hassle or issues associated with an older property whilst I awaited surgery and recovered. How wrong was I? All I’ve had is stress for 16 months. I was even lying in my hospital bed awake the night before stressing about the house, and how if things go wrong in my operation and I don’t make it my family will have to deal with the incompetence of your Durham team. That’s a horrible position to be in, believe me, but that’s what I had to go through because of the Persimmon Durham team’s inability to build a house properly or correct their issues. In addition to this, their Durham office have completely disregarded their official complaints process, taking nearly 11 months to formally address my official complaint, as opposed to the 8 weeks outlined on their website. This has naturally added to my anger and distress. They even had 3 months to finalise and plan the repairs on my home whilst I recovered from my operation, but instead they did nothing. Numerous flagged items have been completely ignored, others are considered my fault, despite me having evidence showing that I reported them within a few weeks of moving in, or been dismissed as within tolerance, or a reasonable standard. When I have asked them to share specifics from the LABC Technical Manual to confirm their findings, or for the measurements to confirm they are correct, they have refused to do so – Why would they not be prepared to share this? The refusal to address the issues in my home is in many instances in direct contradiction to many of the actions agreed with a different Managing Director from Persimmon North East one month prior to my surgery. Amongst the numerous actions previously agreed before the Persimmon Durham Interim Managing Director became involved, it was confirmed that there would be a joint Persimmon / Howdens inspection of the kitchen, that scaffolding would be placed around the house and the brickwork issues to be looked at, and the issues in the bathroom and en suite were to be to be addressed. Persimmon made a total of £1.7 billion in pre-tax profits in their two most recent financial accounts. I have no issue with this success. However, I do expect my house to be built properly and to not have to deal with over 200 defects which would likely cost tens of thousands of pounds to rectify. After the last 16 months, I can genuinely say that dealing with Persimmon is worse than having open heart surgery. In hospital I was very fortunate to deal with people with amazing competency, skill and compassion. Everyone was a credit to themselves and the NHS. It is a shame that the Management of Persimmon Durham do not display these attributes, as this whole situation could have been easily avoided if my home had been built properly, or if the issues had been dealt with. If you’re considering buying a newbuild house in the Durham area, avoid Persimmon. There are plenty of reputable builders (and older homes) that will have been built properly.
written by Shepherd448 on 10/05/2023
Have had same issues still outstanding for almost a year. The after care is atrocious. I have had to take approx 30 seperate times off of work for issues to be fixed. Half the time they aren’t fixed and they try to cover the job up instead. Issues with heating, boiler, no internet for a month + when move in, toilets blocked, front door broken, back door broken, leaks, broken furniture moved by their workers, broken promises, plumbing issues, garden not laid, garage wasn’t finished, toilets broken, hole in roof the list goes on……,some of these issues still outstanding since last year.
written by KendraChavez on 12/02/2023
Persimmon massively under valued our property for the part exchange scheme, I believe this is because the other potential buyers property was of less value for them to purchase! I was lead to believe they would offer 105% of our property market value. I have had my own valuations done which were all of the same value. The valuations they had were miles apart and none of it makes sense, They sent three companies out 2 that wasn’t even valuators, they took pictures on a phone to take back to the person that should of been doing the valuation on the day but they couldn’t make it, how they can possibly conclude an accurate valuation for this doesn’t seem right. No negotiation after I voiced my concerns regarding our property not been valued properly, very disappointed with this entire experience and the stress leading up to it with no resolution offered!
written by Hankster on 06/11/2022
Electrics a nightmare and dangerous, loose connections, two zone thermostats wired up wrong, downstairs controls upstairs and vice versa, should you be messing with electric and gas? Still waiting for it to be sorted.
written by Darienq303 on 21/09/2022
They have lied every step of the way. My neighbours and I paid extra for a “private cul de sac” and were told there would be a park etc. None of this has been built. They are starting phase 2 right next to our houses and haven’t informed us about it at all. They haven’t fulfilled their original plot promises. There is a public footpath running down the bottom of our “private cul de sac” they outright lied about and have continued to try and worm their way out of it. They completely ignore emails and phone calls just hoping you go away. The East Midlands head office is just as ignorant and also lie about promises. Don’t do it.
written by PTordoff on 29/05/2021
Warning !! We missed our deadline to exchange contracts by 2 days in April 2021 Persimmon refused an extension and have also refused to refund the money we paid for the reservation fee and the money we paid in good faith for our finishing touches. The Group’s underlying profit before tax for 2020 was £863m and with a cash balance of £1,234m I'm sure our contribution of approximately £2500 will help ensure 2021 will be just as successful Please avoid if you can
written by Airwolff on 06/08/2020
Permission homes are THE worst company I have ever come across. They have a blatant disregard for anything other than Money. If this excuse for a company were an individual they would go to prison.
written by Zariaj111 on 10/07/2020
If you are Part Exchanging with Persimmons Homes one piece of advice I would give you is to demand that Persimmons carry out the Homebuyers Survey simultaneously with the Estate agents valuations before you pay any Reservation fee or sign the part exchange contact. If you read our experience as below all will come clear: My wife and I signed up to a home buyers part exchange scheme with Persimmon Homes in September 2019. The agreement was for us to exchange our house for an agreed sum and buy a house from Persimmons for an agreed sum. We had valuations carried out by local estate agents as the first steps and were given a Buyer’s Exchange of Contracts Checklist to work through. We began by applying for a mortgage with their recommended mortgage brokers, instructed their recommend conveyancing solicitors and paid a £300 commitment fee, arranged and paid for gas and electricity reports. All was going well until we had The Home Buyers Survey carried out in November. After the surveyor carried out the survey, he informed me that there were some minor issues but wouldn’t go into specifics. I phoned Persimmon several times after the survey and emailed the sales office to get the results from it. 2 weeks past and we assumed that the Survey had passed then in mid November I received a phone call from Persimmons to say that issues had been found and they wanted 2 further surveys; Wood and Timber and Structural Survey. Both surveys found embellished issues with the house and subsequently Persimmon homes would not honour the part exchange. Section 2 of the part exchange contact we signed stipulated that if defects were found on the house we were selling we would be given the option to rectify these at our own costs, which we agreed to do but Persimmons were not interested when we approached them about this. We were eventually refunded £250 from the £500 reservation fee in February 2020 after many phone calls, however we believe that we should have been refunded the remaining £250 as we had the reservation cancelled on us by Persimmons opposed to us changing our minds and cancelling on our own free will. We also paid for the optional extra of an outside tap on the new build that cost us £95 and the £600 we paid to Ison Harrison Solicitors for the conveyancing. All in all Persimmons have left us £945 out of pocket. We requested a full refund for all our costs incurred as the reasons for Persimmons cancelling were beyond our control but Persimmons refused saying they had the right to pull out and are not under any obligation to refund us. Basically, Persimmons has acted like an unscrupulous private seller in doing this. We were out of pocket for simply following the instructions given to us Buyer’s Exchange of Contracts Checklist and we did everything in the order the form that was given to us when we signed the contract. The whole process of the part exchange caused us a great deal of stress and anxiety. It wasn’t as it was sold to us in the showroom as an easy stress-free process I the showroom. In fact it was nightmare from start to finish and we were given lots of misleading information. In our opinion If the house, we were selling was going to be potentially such an issue for Persimmons they should have had the survey carried out at the same time as the estate agents valuation to save us from this hassle and wasting our money and not so far into the process as per my opening paragraph. Anyone part exchanging needs to consider potential issues you may have along the way as from our experience you will be offered no support. They even wanted us to pay for the 2 additional surveys out of our own pocket but we refused. If Persimmons can find an excuse to pull out they will do. For example if not the survey it could be the electrical report etc. The part exchange contract is not worth the paper it is written on as the final section states that Persimmons have the right cancel or withdraw from the scheme at anytime. There is no law that can compel Persimmons to refund you your money if they decide to pull out as home buying and selling are not covered by general consumer law and Persimmons take full advantage of the lack of protection. If for example you book a holiday and the holiday firm cancels then you quite rightly expect a full refund and the travel firm is breaching consumer law if it refuses. Home buyers from large multinational house builders should be offered this same protection. If after reading this you still decide you want to part exchange with them ask the person in the showroom what will happen if things go wrong and use my experience as a hypothetical example. Ask them if you will get your fees back, ask them if they will carry out the Homebuyers survey as the first step rather than towards the end and if not why not?
written by ascotbob on 15/07/2019
Absolutely abysmal after sale contact, refusal to acknowledge responsibility for shoddy standards
written by Roninc58 on 07/02/2019
brought from Guilden park harlow terrible staff very unhelpful change of staff all the time I am not sure if they know what they are doing on date of exchange completion getting keys went in and was told to check over for faults (there should not have been faults) new house they should be checking for that shoddy workmanship the sales office could not answer any questions when asked about the house paid extra to upgrade kitchen I wish I had told them not to fit one as if that is what is called upgraded I would not like to see the ones fitted that were not upgraded brought carpet package but asked not to fit just supply the lounge as I paid for it but they fitted the rest of the house and did not supply the lounge so paid but did not get damaged windows damaged tiles paint on tiles I could go on and on I would recommend looking to purchase elsewhere if I was buying a new house again
written by Madalynn127 on 01/02/2019
I urge anyone who has put down a reservation deposit to pull out now. I didn't listen, I thought it can't be that bad. I did my research and met several people on the earlier phase who had no problems, they were happy with their homes. Now it appears that they were reluctant to say otherwise. On this development, or cult as I'd prefer to call it, it's very much "keep your mouth shout, pretend you're happy, write a five star review and we will fix your snags". Sales team (lady) is the most two-faced person I've ever met. Prepared to make her self look good and pass blame onto her colleagues, she's got no clue about data protection and gives out far too much information about other residents Build and finishing quality = absolutely appalling, my new house looks like it had previously been lived in by squatters. Damage to windows, doors, driveway, kitchen, flooring, paintwork, woodwork, carpets, plumbing.......... the list is endless. Head office have so far been ok with acknowledging the shoddy work, but the trades they send round to fix/repair/make good are clearly unskilled or just don't care enough to do a good job. Now I'm faced with having to do a lot of work myself and pay other people to get it looking to a decent standard. I cannot have them keep coming in and making things worse. You cannot blob gloss paint over badly glossed wood and expect a good finish, nor can you hide the mistakes with 4 inches of mastic. Communication between customer care, site management and maintenance staff is non existent. I've had people turn up to do jobs that are on other houses' snagging list, and I'm sure the jobs which haven't been done at my house have probably been carried out on someone else's house. The constant change in management positions on site leaves me having to chase and explain things over and over again. It's making me ill. I can't concentrate on anything else and every day that someone is in my house to "fix" something I dread going home, not that I can even call it home. If I could turn back the clock - I certainly wouldn't have bought with Persimmon. For those of you reading this who have exchanged, good luck and I sincerely hope you have a better experience. If you've paid thousands on upgrades, you might be well looked after, it certainly makes a different on this development - the more you paid in extras, the more attention is paid to finishing your house at a decent standard. Although I will add, no fancy granite worktop and glossy cupboard doors will improve the quality of the kitchen carcasses (they are terrible).
written by Deons257 on 23/01/2019
Absolutely appalling build quality I think they use the cheapest materials and labour. Check out mynewhomeblog.com Looks like some irate resident is spilling out the beans
written by Norrisbj365 on 19/11/2018
Seaton sands Hartlepool The worst experience we have ever had , we been in 3 months from day one no hand over then they lost the keys , we done the 7 day and 28 day snag list ,still waiting nothing been done , just endless false promises by the site manager and then a phone call from the customer manager saying the site manager is rubbish don't go through him but still as of now he also done nothing , they are all back stabbers blaming each other and promising jobs then not doing, only advise I would say is don't listen to a word they say and make sure the jobs are done before moving in
written by DariusTempleton on 10/11/2018
Bought at Bishopsgate i was informed by the sales advisor 2 weeks for an up date about the water she said speak to your solicitor also spoken her yesterday now she is saying that my collegue should have updated you about that passing the blame on to some one else i asked are still moving by the date we where given she replied by couple of more weeks soory its out of my hand speak to your solicitors
written by prashant4569 on 30/10/2018
i went to buy a house and enquired and spkoke a lady yes you can reserve but cant give you a date to move in due to water i have been trying get answers its always the same i have herd that 2 more people pulled out because of same issue my i spoke to my friend who had bought at mallory he said yes dont buy there ......................
written by mikeyranson on 29/10/2018
Once they have sold their product and they have your money, they will totally ignore you. Their customer services are non existant. Swept under the carpet and forgotten about. Once again, dad is on hand to help. My daughters bought a house from them against my advise as they had appalling reviews for their building quality and customer services as well as warranty issues. The internal build was poor. coming from a non building trade but construction industry myself, i picked up loads of poor install and quality finished issues. After some nine months, this is still ongoing. My daughters and other residents have continued to have punctures caused by nails and screws. Persimmon has denied that the nails and screws belong to them. There is nobody else on site building except persimmon. Do all nails and screws have persimmon punched onto them to identify who the owner is? No. each of my daughters have had punctures and each have had to have new a new tyre on their cars. The reidents are all having the same issue. Nothing but complete ignorance from persimmon and they fail to deal with it. Take advice and do not buy a persimmon home. Some will be delighted with what they have but looking at reviews across the media, the percentage of bad reviews totally suffocate the good reviews. Customer service and warranty sucks with persimmon.. Have communicated with live chat, email and phone. Emails get answered the first time round. Live chat, they just dont read what is in front of them and ignore your request for contact names and numbers. Phone, they just past the message on. and follow up phone call in return.
written by brettwallis on 17/09/2018
DO NOT BUY ANYTHING FROM THEM. Terrible customer service, shoddy build quality, and bad value for money. It appears that as soon as they have taken your money they move on to the next development and forget you exist. 3 years later we are still trying to get issues sorted which were raised with them in the first 2 months. If I could rate them less than 1 star I would.
written by on 22/08/2018
Worst company to buy your 1st home from!!!! Rushed me to move in probably wasn’t even finished!! Walls are not even straight Front door damaged Carpet damaged Wrong underlay for carpet Kitchen doors missing Oven wasn’t even screwed in The electrical box isn’t labelled up so don’t know what’s for what! Damaged patio doors Ceiling is wonky Door hinges all damaged Wasn’t given a tour Didn’t know where my water shut off was
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As rated by our community of reviewers
David4747's Response to prashant4569's Review
Written on: 10/11/2018
Hi my friends bought at Bishopsgate i was there is afternoon seen one the contractors even they cant believe that the water is not safe to drink why would you move people in????????????????