Persimmon Homes www.persimmonhomes.com

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.

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!!

We moved into our home in June 2023 we had a few snagging problems but they are getting dealt with

Our sales team and site maager are excellent

we did part exchange that went well also

we are at Silverwood Garforth leeds we are happy with most things

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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.