Redrow disaster
- chloejxnes
- Mar 21, 2017
- 8 min read
Redrow housing! Where to begin? Well, as first time buyers we was extremely excited to get ourselves on the property ladder, as many of us are!
Accidentally we came across Redrow housing, who had a new development being built in our area. We looked on the website and noticed they was building the last few houses to complete the development, this is where we came across the WARWICK! As many of you well know, this is a stunning 3 bed detached property with a garage to compliment (lets not mention the fact it has an en-suite, every womans dream!) We was never interested in new builds because, well, they lack character when in comparison to some of these gorgeous old period cottages you can come across on the market! But Redrow built their homes WITH character, basing their designs off of "old build" architecture. So you get the look of an old build that has had a massive makeover and moreover, all new appliances so no worries about having to fork out money on re-wiring and the likes.
Right! We was adamant to see this show home of the Warwick home, online they advertised it as a price of £189,995. The Warwick is the only 3 bed Detached home that Redrow offer for our particular development, so when we called up to arrange an appointment, the sales lady on the phone knew exactly which property we was talking about.
I'm so glad that we kept this screen shot on our phones, because it clearly states the price they're advertising the property for. The sales lady confirmed this on the phone, why? Maybe she was ignorant, commission thirsty, or just lazy as fuck to check!
The next day (quick movers, I told you all this, I know, I know!) We had a 10am appointment with this sales lady who I cant name for copious reasons, I was thinking of great names for her such as snakey-cow, pinnocchio, bullshitter-betty and the likes BUT, to keep things simple and to reduce the word count of this blog, I shall call her Janine. Because Janine just sounds like a name that you can't trust (I'm awfully apologetic to all of those Janine's out there, I'm sure you're lovely!) Janine greeted us, sat us down, she was REALLY enthusiastic until an older couple came waltzing in out of the blue approximately 5 minutes in to our appointment. Now, I know a commission milker when I see one, and she pounced at the opportunity to speak with this couple. she excused herself (no, she chucked us some leaflets and told us to crack on) and her attitude completely changed, this couple was perhaps mid 40's, looking at the most expensive property the development had to offer. Janine wouldn't leave them alone, despite them stating they was only looking at the development blueprints and collecting leaflets, obviously she saw the opportunity for a higher commission win and flung herself straight towards it!
After all, the older the age the bigger the wallet size, right?
So, not a huge problem, but it certainly let us know exactly what Redrow was about, MONEY.
Finally the mid 40's fancy swanky couple removed themselves and we was put back onto priority, gee thanks Janine.
She showed us through the show home and it was beautiful, exactly what we imagined ourselves living in. She swooped straight in with the "Early Bird" procedure however then decided to tell us that the property price online is a 'mistake' and the property, The Warwick, is actually in fact £200k. Right, ok... most enthusiastic first time buyers, especially if taking advantage of help to buy, would consider the price jump right? Right.
We said we needed time to think about it, we had the early bird money ready and waiting in our savings account however there was lots of things to take into consideration, such as: Is this what we want to spend two hundred thousand pounds on?
Are we happy with the price increase?
Are we happy with the location of the plot? (we wasn't given a choice, Janine stated there was only one left, cough, lie, cough. And this 'LAST WARWICK' was planted right next to Social housing, I mean next door!)
Now I know that sometimes you pull the short straw in life, you're the last one standing, somebody ALWAYS has to come last pick. And in no way am I saying that social housing equals bad neighbours, I grew up on one of the WORST council estates, born and bred! But what I am saying is, 200K is a lot of money to be forking out, only to not have exactly what you want, also it could be quite a conflict situation considering my job entails me working with a massive amount of public in ways that perhaps those members of public won't like me very much, sorry...
Moving on, we decided to go back into the sales office the next day and put down our £500 for our early bird, whilst looking over the bits we was signing, I noticed the price of the property had increased to £225,000. HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN? Confused and infuriated, really, we asked what this meant. Janine promised we needn't worry, and that she would barter the price as close to £200k with the builders as she could. right ok. She then tossed in the fact that we could have "whatever incentives we want" She went through her list on the computer, Granite worktops, Kitchen Shaker upgrade, double oven, integrated dishwasher, downlighting, all wardrobes, flooring. Slowly but surely this very convincing list totalled to almost £20k!! FOR FREE!! Well, I'll tell you all something for free, the reason why this list was so convincing is because of the way Janine demonstrates that she shouldn't be in sales, she should be in fact an A list actor. I quote "you can have whatever incentives you would like, because a couple of grand here and there is nothing to Redrow who are billionaires" Now that sounds convincing right? And why would we be lied to, anyway?
weeks later, after hearing no promised updates, we suddenly receive a call from Janine, she told us she has some exciting news to deliver, that she has just walked through the site and spoke with the builders, AND she has seen my foundations, they look lovely bla-bla-bullshit. Janine, you sneaky little fox! I drove up to the site the next day, only to be greeted by dirt and sweaty builders. I asked them what was going on and the builders said they haven't spoken with Janine, and have no idea where this information came from because, well, simply... it's all bullshit. oh yeah and another thing, we won't be starting your foundations for another 7 weeks..... 7 WEEKS? WE WAS PROMISED A SPRING BUILD DATE FINISH!!!!!
Anyway, I wrote a massive e-mail to Janine, which if you have seen my Instagram story you will know exactly what I'm talking about.
No reply.
For 3 weeks.
Impatient and sick of waiting, I called up Janine, when I stated my name on the phone, Janine immediately said "your foundations are all complete hon, how exciting" Well Janine the thing is, it's not exciting because I've been to the site and there are NO foundations so I don't know where you're looking but clearly it's in the wrong place!!!! No apology, just a soul wrenching long pause... "ah yes, you're right. The foundations aren't there" Well, no shit. I said that's cutting it short for a Spring finish date isn't it? Another pause... "it won't be completed till November."
OH......... NOVEMBER?! what an absolute waste of time! In all honesty I SHOULD have known better, did I really think a house could be built in 6-7 months? (yes, I did, because I didn't think we would be lied to so much!)
I was polite on the phone to Janine, well.. if you class hanging up as polite then yes, that. I instantly wrote a super long e-mail to Redrows managing directors for West Midlands, stating all of our issues, I received a call the following Monday morning from the Sales director (NOT WHO I WAS TRYING TO SPEAK TO) let's call her FIONA!! Because that name just reminds me of a condescending bit*h anyway.
Fiona simply wasn't interested in what I had to say, she said that we was lying about the price we have seen online, stating that she has the website infant of her and "Warwick would never sell for that price hun, the cheapest we have sold them for is £200k" hun this hun that, I got frustrated of course! I argued that I know what I have seen and what I have been told and I have proof of the price, she then tried to say "we can't ever sell you the redrow for 200k, let alone 189k! if it's a cheaper house you're looking for then we have Letchworths or you will just have to look elsewhere" Now, this is why I called her Fiona, because how rude is that? We aren't looking for a cheaper price for the property at all, we are just trying to resolve this problem! well, problems! If we was looking for a cheaper house we wouldn't be looking at your swanky over-priced properties, we would be looking second hand on the market, but yet... we are here... with money, wanting a half decent service... Fiona's favourite line was "if you don't like it Chloe, theres plenty of other people who would jump on this opportunity as soon as you walk through the door" and "you can just walk away and have a refund" What kind of service is this? I made it very clear that if I wanted a letchworth, we would have gone for one of those plots, but we liked the Warwick and that is why we are here. Fiona proceeded to tell us we was bonkers about the incentives, made us feel so small, laughing under her breath and degrading us by saying things such as "we may help people with flooring prices, but we don't just give away all of those things like a goody bag, were not a charity!" laughing whilst speaking, like, what is funny really Fiona? this is what we was told... This is what Janine offered us (which is cohering sales tactics) (and illegal) Fiona said we was lying and that it is simply impossible that we was told this information.
She didn't take us seriously at all, perhaps because we are young and so she think's were naive and stupid. The way she laughed under her breath was just degrading. She made me feel like I was begging for something. I wasn't... I just wanted half decent service, maybe an apology... you know?
Well, none of that was offered. I sent Fiona proof of the original price we saw, to which she took a whole night to decide what to say about it. She finally came up with "it don't say Warwick on there Chloe" You're right, it doesn't... But you only sell ONE 3 bed detached home, and moreover, Janine confirmed that this information was correct over the phone.
Very long story short guys, Redrow delivered such disgusting service that we have now requested a refund. It's absolutely disgusting, and the reason they do it? Because all they care about is money, not it's customers. They know that if you don't want it, somebody else will... And that's the disgusting thing. IF we would have been apologised to and perhaps given a reason as to why we have been told fabricated information this entire time, we perhaps would still be customers of Redrow housing... Unfortunately their customer service skills are non-existent and they're not interested in speaking with you if they're in the wrong.
I have written to ASA regarding their false advertisement (which is illegal) if you do some re-search you will find many reports of redrow falsely advertising their products, so be careful and cautious when going for something like this, and get absolutely everything in writing. Saying that however, we had everything in writing but we was called liars.
Thank's for reading everybody, I'm not the best of writers but here it is! our redrow mess!!!
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