Holiday Cottages www.holidaycottages.co.uk

Fantastic house with views to match. Very tasteful decor. Owners took time to show us around. Magnificent large garden with babbling brook at the bottom. Accommodation second to none with large rooms all around. Basement Reading/toy room and utility area opening onto the garden. 3 local reservoirs within a stone’s throw where you can picnic and enjoy the scenery. Utterly gorgeous.

We stayed at an expensive property in Instow, Devon which fell well below expectations and needed frequent maintenance call-outs. A critical but fair review was provided to holidaycottages.co.uk which included both positives and negatives.

As the owner did not agree with our feedback, holidaycottages.co.uk have only published the positive parts of the review. They confirmed that this was the case via email.

Feedback does not have to be agreed with. It is a matter of fairness and transparency that reviews are published in full.

Booking ref: 2845051

Bottom line upfront, dirty, tired, outdated and unsafe in certain areas. It is complete joke this is advertised as a 5 star on the web page. I would struggle to give this a 3 star rating.

When we arrived, there was someone else living in the property arguing the case, they were booked into our property. This took hours to fix.

Property owner advertised their phone number on the Holiday Cottages web page for any problems. Tried phoning and texting on numerous occasions with no answer. Eventually gave up on this and tried communicating with Holiday Cottages.

Holiday Cottages were no help at all. They were full of apologies with zero help to fix anything. They blamed everything on the owner who was unreachable.

List of problems

Someone else was living in the property when we arrived. It took time to get them out with no help from Holiday Cottages. We had to clean toilet and kitchen ourselves as holiday cottages weren’t entirely forthcoming in resolving the issue.

Socket in the bedroom comes off the wall when you pull the plug out = Unusable and unsafe.

4 Showers in the property, 3 of which go from freezing cold to red hot = 1 shower safe / 8 people using one shower. We were told a plumber would attend to rectify the issue resulting in a number of our guests wasting a days holiday to let them in and they never arrived.

Sink blocked in downstairs toilet = Had to do the best I could to fix this myself.

Broken lampshade in livingroom.

Wine cooler not working, handle broken and bottom grating held on by duct tape.

TV in the bedroom is broken, unusable as half of the screen was cracked.

Various door handles around the house unusable and falling off.

Stairs in the garden = I fell down these as the top step, as well as a couple of the others are loose. The top step gave way and I fell down the other steps to the bottom. I was very lucky I did not get a bad injury.

The hob on the island in the kitchen is broken and keeps tripping = The only way it works is to turn it on, let it trip, then re-set the breaker to get it to work.

The blinds in the living room are broken and snapped.

WIFI drops the signal every few minutes = This makes it impossible to do any work or watch online TV.

Both the balcony and Garden benches / chairs are broken and unsafe.

Barbeques are unclean and unusable = You need to bring your own disposables.

The bedroom drawers are broken and unusable.

Curtains in master bedroom broken and ripped, looks as though moths have eaten the material.

In general, the place was unclean, in areas unsafe and doors are unsecure as there is only one key to lock one door. The other doors are bolted from the inside, the majority of which won’t bolt due to swollen wood or poor fittings.

I have lots of photos as evidence if anyone would like me to evidence this complaint.

It is such a shame. When I booked this property, I had so much high expectations and was very excited about arriving. The views are stunning and the area is beautiful. There is lots of potential for this property but it has been let down badly by very poor maintenance and cleaning. It is very clear, nobody has checked this property for safety and basic working facilities for a while. The roads are also a little daunting due to how narrow they are and are difficult to navigate in certain places, especially if traffic happens to be coming in the opposite direction. The main road to and from the property has a 3 ton weight limit so considerations need to be made before booking this place. There are no bins in or around the property. You have to walk 10mins down the tracks to dump the bin bags. This can be challenging if you have a run of bad weather.

In my opinion, if you are looking for a 5 star, avoid this place. If you are looking for somewhere to place your head at night and go walking every day, spending minimum time at the property, this could work for you. It is no way 5 star and certainly not value for money. I spent just short of £3k to stay here. Me and my family would have got more value for money in a Travel Lodge.

If you have any problems, accept it and try fixing it yourself as nobody will help.

Date of experience: 28 July 2023

Left a review two weeks ago about a cottage we stayed in mentioning the bad bits and why we left after only three days but it was never published on the review page for the property so I will not be back again with this company when I sent in a complaint they answered after I put something on social media about them but after saying they will get back to me they haven’t bothered very bad customer support beware

Holiday booked the 27th May 2022, gave 5 months notice of cancellation , took my deposit of £579 then resold my Holiday! BEWARE!

A cottage was booked last year with Holiday cottages near Bouton in the Water before the COVID Virus for 2020 by my wife as a surprise for me as I love that area. I am disabled but would have been able to go. We even had our own Christmas tree to take with us.

A £300.00 deposit was paid and all was fine.

Later in the year as the pandemic increased with added strength, my Son who is a Doctor told us that we would not be able to go because of this as it was going to carry on throughout Christmas and beyond.

At a later date my wife duly cancelled and we found out as their cancellation policy states, because the property was re-let, we were entitled to a full refund of deposit which was great.

Were we heck as like. These people seem to magically twist their own terms and conditions to take your money and not refund although their re-let policy states otherwise. Not worth the paper it is written on.

After various return emails from three women and numerous others dismissing our rightful claim of refund, we were then sent, (to add insult to injury) a glossy email inviting us to book up for another holiday!!! You must be ‘piggin’ joking!!

To be fair (if that is possible in this instance,) we did get a refund of £130.00 of the £300.00 we had paid so I suppose should be grateful for small mercies. Although even if there was going to be a cancellation fee of £60 or £70 we would still be around £100.00 out of pocket!!

I mean, how can a company just keep customers hard earned cash and get away with it?

This went on for months with excuse after excuse coming back to us, until in the end a email came to us saying the case had been closed.

I expect what they really meant to say was they had run out of excuses!! And looking at all the feedback of one star entries, we are among many others who have had this same problem.

No wonder this company can have large fancy offices no doubt helped by the unreturned deposits of genuine people who were looking forward to their holiday.

I really do not know how they get away with it.

Fob off after fob off then when there are no more excuses, terminate all co-respondance.

How lucky that we did not pay the full amount!!

Absolutely disgusting. I cannot write here what I am feeling otherwise it would be edited out.

But ‘hey’ way to go man. What a great way to make money and get away with it!!

Yes, go ahead and use this company, but if you have to cancel, even for a valid reason, do not expect to see any of your money back!!

To mention, there are obviously some people who book and have no problem with their holiday bookings (assuming that the 5 star feedback is genuine) but woe betide if you have to cancel your booking. I seriously doubt that you will get any money refunded.

Avoid this holiday booking company unless you want to lose a shed load of cash if things go wrong for you.

I will definitely ‘Name and Shame’ on as many reviews as I can find. Although as the old saying goes, would be just ‘water off a ducks back’ to them.

Honestly, they make Fagin. look like a saint.

Really angry and annoyed by their attitude.

We where booked to go to one of their cottages in Appledore in July. My husband and myself are front line NHS staff and have been nursing Covid patients. Due to staffing levels we have been informed that our holiday leave may be cancelled. My father is over 70 and has heart disease so due to shielding cannot go on the holiday. I requested to reschedule the booking with no joy. This firms customer care is dreadful. They where extremely unhelpful and curt on the telephone.I was given no option but to cancel and lose my deposit.

Since trying to cancel my holiday and obtain a refund I have been ignored ,fobbed off , ignored again and then they cancelled my holiday with no refund. Numerous emails later , after being urged to rebook later in the year , I was advised to contact my insurance company. I emailed back stating, for the umpteenth time , that insurance was taken out with themselves and could they provide a copy of their policy and have been totally ignored. I have phoned , and managed to speak to an adviser who said they would pass on my request, emailed numerous more times, and two weeks later I am still being ignored. Abysmal company. Avoid at all costs

My holidaycottages.co.uk holiday is due to start in 2 days time. They haven't bothered to contacted me, so I sent an email requesting a refund which I am claiming under section 7 of their booking conditions. I received a reply with instructions to rebook. I don't want to rebook, any other time I can take the holiday is far more expensive. Since requesting a refund my emails are being ignored.

I have had a terrible time with these people. When the COVID 19 crisis first came up, I contacted them proactively to reschedule for next year. My original booking was for May 16-23. I got numerous form-letter type emails that looked like they hadn't even bothered to read what I wrote. When they finally contacted me to tell me they would rebook for next year, the price increase was £220, which is a 27% increase. I can't believe a company can stay in business this way. I felt I had no choice but to pay the additional money, or lose the money I had already paid them. Profiting from a crisis is absolutely SHAMEFUL. The increase in the price hit me very hard in the pocket book. I am a single senior citizen, and have never been treated so poorly. I will not be booking with these people again, even though I holiday in Scotland frequently.