Story Homes - www.storyhomes.co.uk

Received an email tonight from Story Homes to say they would not do business with us because we cancelled a reservation within two days as the garden was so high it could not be mown, three months later we reserved a house that would not be ready until December 2024 and it was 300 miles away, and we cancelled within 24 hours. . So they refuse to do business with us - just goes to show how much money they have to refuse nearly a quarter of a million sale. We are now in Story jail and its not pretty lol be warned

Buying a home from Story Homes has to be the biggest mistake I have ever made, the second they got the money customer care disappeared.

Issues with doors, windows, walls, garden, toilets, leaks, hot water cylinder, flooding garage some issues taking months to get put right.

Think twice before giving these unlawful people your money you will live to regret it.

Don’t waste your time and energy with these developers.

Riverbrook gardens - sales executive doesn’t know what she is talking about. Either falsies and makes things up or pretends she knows and gets it wrong. Example; we raised a concern with the sewage plant beside the site, she explained a survey conducted in the cussins site showed 100% of people at the site didn’t notice any smell, upon further discussions we where told that the site does give off a smell

So we questioned this, the sales executive then told us it was 80% of people didn’t notice a smell. It later turned out, no survey was conducted and it was made up.

Consistent lack of site and housing knowledge and re clarification needed across number weeks and emails, phones call with various staff members.

Management passing the buck and taking no accountability for issues. Regional sales director uncontactable until 29 days after the reservation. Numerous emails and calls to him, he is too important to get involved in the day to day or take any accountability for any customers concerns or experience. Serious questions have to asked about what or how this sales director is doing to help his team and most importantly customers who specifically request to speak to him or alternatively seek his advice based upon a terrible experience.

House we reserved still marketed for 3 weeks after we reserved it??

Told to exchange contracts before completing searches??

It seems this development doesn’t want any questions if your enquire about spending 500k on a house, you either don’t ask questions or alternatively they hide behind a desk and give you inaccurate information as staff blame management and management blame the staff.

My suggestion is to look elsewhere as this experience has been awful and I’m sure there is plenty of other good housing sites willing to give a far better experience than story homes.

From start to finish this company doesn't help. They promise everything yet deliver on nothing. They pretend to have good reviews o trust pilot yet their real score is shown clearly on. this platform. They threaten when negative reviews are placed online. Avoid this Mickey Mouse company like the plague

We bought our property from Story Homes back in December 2018 and have reported a number of issues during the first 2 years. Some of them rolled over onto a third year due to Covid and them not being able to do the fixes.

One thing that we've reported during our first 2 years was the issue with the render discolouring caused by the previous issue where gutter was overflowing as a result of contractors not cleaning it properly on completion with all the debris clogging the exit.

The water from the gutter was splashing all over the render and a few months later we started seeing the discolouring on the wall where it took place.

Despite my communication with Story Homes and countless render contractors visits with promises it will be fixed, the final decision was that they did the tap-test and the render is all fine therefore they won't be fixing it. I've explained that the issue was never about the render integrity, but about the discolouring, but they just wouldn't listen and the decision is final.

In our estate in Clifton near Penrith there are several properties that have their render re-done at the moment - clear indication of the quality of their work.

I'll be seeking some legal advise to get this resolved as I feel our complaints weren't taken seriously at all.

We misguidedly fell for the 5 star propaganda. Bought on Eden Gate Houghton.

The basic house design was good but there was apparently lack of technical understanding of affect of meeting changing building regs and layout.

Underfloor vents are bricked over (maybe because new regs, require disabled access), lofts suffer from condensation, central heating control system not functional - (two zone fitted - hall radiator shuts down up-stairs heating as heat flows up the stairs).

Several reports of misinstalled gas fires, non fitting of air venting devices on 'smelly' pipes, pavements unmade and rough for two years, gas cut off by contractors mal operation.

Hopeless customer service contact centre (but when workmen actually come to clear faults give good service).

When a fault reported on one house - say smelly pipe fault - no attempt made to check whether repeated by sub contractor as one would expect from reputable builder.

No sign of quality control over work of sub contractors one would reasonably expect now.

Get impression the the person I dealt with have expanded faster than the company management can adapt to maintain basic level of control of quality or customer satisfaction (or safety?).

Actually feel sorry for The person I dealt with he has been let down.

We are homeless because of Story Homes. We therefore are subject to storage costs solicitor costs extra rental costs, sales ignore you and give any excuse including "don't buy the house then" all email available to prove this.

We moved into our first home in December 2016 and issued Story with a snagging list a week later. Since then we have been emailing and ringing constantly to get our snags corrected, and 19 months later we are no further forward!

They have installed parts of our kitchen wrong, and their response is that its 'not their problem'.

We paid extra to upgrade our kitchen tap and since the day we moved in, the handle falls off in your hand every time you turn the tap on. Apparently a replacement tap was re-ordered 8 months ago, but we're still waiting for it to be replaced!

We haven't been able to use our bath since the day we moved in. Every time we do, water comes through our living room ceiling. After Story coming out 3 times to fix this, the leak is still there.

The finish of the house was disgusting with every surface covered in dirt and dust when we got our keys. There is paint all over our windows, window surrounds, kitchen units, bathroom suite, carpet, light switches etc.

Customer service blame the contractors, and expect you to chase them and arrange the work yourself, and that's when they reply to you in the first place!

Considering this is the biggest investment we will ever make, i would rather live in a caravan than ever buy another Story Home.

I've been living in my Story Homes house for several months, and it is hard to know where to begin. It is not that Story Homes are intentionally poor, it's just they have a business model with no attention to customer service. They are expanding rapidly and building the houses without the teams in place to support them. You can wait weeks even for a reply while your house is crumbling around you, and not one person in the company cares enough to take ownership and help to resolve the issues. Everyone is a manager, but no-one is responsible, and it's tragic listening to them pass the buck amongst each other and their subcontractor. Put frankly, you are on you own. It's a pity as they use some pretty decent materials and the quality is not bad compared to other builders, but as people making the single biggest purchase of your life you expect top class customer service, and if that is your expectation you've come to the wrong place with Story Homes. You may be fortunate, have fewer snags than most, but if you are not then be prepared for stress, frustration and generally no result.

1st moved into the new house march 2012, 2 weeks later house stunk of sewage upstairs toilet wasn't connected to sewage pipe properly, 2 years later all upstairs rooms show signs of damp and black mold, turns out that they don't build the roofs and the felt in the roof was the cheapest you could get and none breathable so you could go to the loft for a shower. borrowed my friends aquavac and ended up taking 15 litres of water off the felt the insulation and joists were also covered in mold. I had to get environmental health involved. They ended up installing some envirovent in the ceiling going into the loft. Now the house is harder to heat as there is cold air blowing constantly from the loft. The vent they installed above the cooker area was just a small extractor thats only supposed to be used in utility rooms or bathrooms / toilets.

We have had constant health problems and still they wont do anything about it.

So basically if I had a Dog I wouldn't even trust them to build a Kennel.