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★★★☆☆

“The DeLorean of House Builders - Good materials used...”

written by CasonLamb on 20/06/2021

I generally encourage positive reviews where possible but likewise I think when something is wrong it also needs to be shared especially when resolution of short coming.

We purchased our new home towards the end of 2020 from Francis Jackson Homes, who had a reputation for building good quality homes in small numbers where time and care are taken.....fast forwards to the here and now and they seem to be a builder who lives on a reputation firmly in the past. It seems to be run by people who have the ideas but cannot execute them with conviction, leaving the finished homes looking OK as long as you don't look too closely.

Each home has a "Directors Inspection", which sounds great if this actually meant something. You would expect this to be, along with periodic inspections by building control during the build process, a seal of quality that the builder himself would be proud of. Within 2 weeks of moving in it was apparent this inspection was little more than a quick once over and nothing like what it sounds like. I am not a builder, far from it, but I know what is right or wrong and the list of "wrong" it quite extensive.

From damaged kitchen doors, paint on carpets and flooring, scratched floor tiles, split internal doors, damaged door handles, leaky chimney, damaged windows (glass and frames), windows you cannot leave open as parts missing, noisy plumbing, noisy floor boards, damaged bathrooms (bath, shower trays, sinks), badly plastered and painted surfaces, missing lead work, broken garage door, weak mortar joints....the list does actually go on.

The slight positive here is that they are working through the list of "wrongs" but very, very slowly and only some of these items are deemed as faults by them!! Each of the trades I have met that have come back to the house seem good but they all had one thing in common, the all criticised other trades and specification of what they had to use.

Ours was one of the more expensive houses on the development, so cost is no guarantee of quality, we have found. Whilst no one likes criticism it seems the more you find wrong the less they are likely to listen. They need to take it on board and actually turn this into a positive by learning from it.....none of the faults and issues would cost more to prevent than than they will to fix, in fact they should cost nothing if fitted properly and care taken to begin with. It seems like inexperience, rather than decades of experience, had made this development barely average. They have used some good quality items that are on show but they have been assembled quite poorly in quite a lot of places.

I would NOT buy another of their houses, this is our 4th house and first (and likely last) new build over 25 years and it has to be one of the most disappointing....if this is representative of the current UK building game then we, and future generations, are in real trouble.

I fully expected some snags and settlement issues on a new build but I can see this will end up costing me a reasonable sum of money to rectify, so, if you are planning to buy a Francis Jackson Home, ensure you have a contingency fund and access to decent tradespeople or simply stop and look elsewhere first.

The shame about reviews is that most people cannot be bothered to make one (good or bad) so with smaller sales like these the true picture is often never seen.

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