"If I could score minus for this company…"

If I could score minus for this company I would! OK the look of the houses are nice but this company has no experience behind them. We have had so many serious problems with this house and no one cares at all. We had water coming through above bifolds in Oct last year. Now we are in March and still have three gaping holes in the brick work of the external of the property. All through the worst of winter with heating pouring out of our house. Even one of their own contracts managers said back in January this should have been fixed two months prior. We have holes all over our house where they have tried to locate leaks. They visit, can't locate leak then leave. We are left constantly chasing them. HONESTLY DO NOT BUY FROM THIS BUILDER - YOU WILL BE LEFT HEART BROKEN AND AND WISHING YOU'D BOUGHT A PERSIMMON HOME! And we all know what reputation they have so just about sums up Backhouse housing. Should not be allowed to caring on trading.

"Just bought our forever home"

Just bought our forever home! 🤩🤩 couldn’t be happier with the whole journey. So hands on, great team of people helping us throughout this journey and now we’ve moved in we couldn’t be happier. Such a beautiful home. The sheer space that comes with these houses is amazing, the ceilings are high, each room feels light and spacious. We are over the moon with our property and the location is perfect 💖 thank you backhouse for bringing our dream to life. 🥂🎉

"Never buy one badly built just take your money then run never fix the problems give you lies after lies"

Don't buy from backhouse badly built never fix problems customer care is a waste of time just give you lies lies lies nearly ever House on our site have major problems road not finished last House was finished a yr ago potholes everywhere they take people's hard earned money then run awful

"Badly built and defective homes"

Myself, my husband and our two children moved into our property on 19th February 2021. We were looking forward to living in our brand new home and experiencing the finish and quality of the homes that Backhouse prides themselves on. I regret to say that what we have actually experienced is nearly 2 years of stress, anxiety and disruption due to a badly-built and defective home.

Below is a list of defects that we inherited from Backhouse. I haven’t included the list of normal cosmetic snags, which (the list is endless) I would accept is normal when moving into a new build home (e.g. bad paintwork, loose door handles)

- Large hump in flooring in front of the kitchen island. Trades attended to take up Karndean, rub down the hump and lay flooring back down but the hump was still there. Trades attended again to repeat. Flooring improved but uneven in several places. Issue was left due to disruption caused and our exasperation.
- 1st Leak from ensuite shower due to defective plumbing – hole cut in kitchen ceiling to fix pipe work.
- 2nd leak in ensuite shower from holes in grout – regrouted
- 3rd leak from flood in the ensuite bathroom due to outside drains being blocked with cement/rubble.
- 4th leak from ensuite shower due to mastic being poorly applied – mastic redone.
- 5th leak from family shower due to defective plumbing – hole cut in kitchen ceiling to fix pipe work.
- 6th leak from family shower due to holes in grout – regrouted.
- 7th leak in downstairs hallway coming from the wall just below the ceiling – this was due to defective plumbing. Hole cut in wall to fix pipe work.
- Large crack across tile in downstairs WC made when the toilet was installed. Remedial works were carried out by 2 “man in a van” organised by Backhouse. Tiles used had been discontinued meaning all tiles had to be replaced. The first man in a van was called Phil who applied mastic by licking his dirty finger and used it as a tool. The second man was called Dave who removed Phil’s mastic work and replaced it with an equally bad job. Backhouse then arranged a professional sealant company to attend to come who sorted the issue.

Below is the current list of serious building and structural defects that has come to light very recently, which all need investigating and rectifying:
- Leak coming in at the top of our bifold door (middle) due to missing or incorrect fitting of cavity tray.
- Water has penetrated the wood under our front and back porch, it's currently rotting away.
- Side wall under flat roof has damp patches where flat roof has failed (most of the houses with flat roofs on the estate have the same issue)
- Windows in the two front bedrooms and master bedrooms are leaking and condensation levels on all upstairs windows are unacceptable.
- Flooring in bedroom 2 to be investigated as gives a hollow sound when walking on it – much different sound from the rest of the upstairs.
An 8th leak has also been present and unresolved since January 2021:
- 8th Leak coming from ensuite shower causing the skirting board in master bedroom on the other side of the wall that backs onto the shower to bulge and warp. Squelching sound from floor in front of shower tray after shower has been used.
- Bath panel in family bathroom is made of MDF and has warped.

The lack of communication from Backhouse astounds me. I feel we have been left in the dark time after time with no time frames of resolving the defects and no plan communicated.

Yes, the sales people are very lovely to you when you are in the process of handing over nearly half a million. Yes, the site manager can't do enough for you in the first few weeks when you move in - I'm afraid it's all down hill from there. Customer care are non existent. If you are thinking of buying a Backhouse home, come and have a look at Callaway Gardens 3 years on from starting the development and talk to the people on the estate. I know that if I had the time back and knew what was ahead, I wouldn't buy from Backhouse again.

"Fabulous house and service at Highworth"

I have read the other reviews here and have been meaning to write about our experiences for a while. We’ve had a really positive experience so far since moving in early November 2022 to a Longhouse on the Highworth development. After an incredibly stressful time with our buyers’ online solicitor, we finally moved in (please never use an online solicitor, it’s just not worth saving a few quid and WILL cause huge stress, if not cause your purchase/sale to fail! We used the excellent Bower & Bailey in Swindon who we have used before - worth every penny!).

We’re absolutely in love with the design and location of the Longhouse, it suits us perfectly with loads of natural light and high ceilings giving this four-bedroom house a feeling of real spaciousness. If fact, many developers would have crammed in a fifth bedroom. We love it so much! Christmas was spent with the log burner roaring and the family enjoying the house.

We initially saw the house early in 2022 - it’s certainly a different and modern design and it was clear there are many design touches that you don’t often get in the other houses we’ve seen or bought. This was our third new build and we’ve also designed and lived through major refurbishment projects so have a fair bit of experience. As soon as I looked around the show house, I was blown away, it was perfect for our needs.

The sales office staff were always friendly and helpful and let us visit so many times. even we thought we were pushing it a bit but were so keen to get in. As we weren’t too far away, we would often pop by in the evenings too, just to look at what we would be moving into eventually.

Months later we were in and quickly furnished and got the house the way we wanted it (many months of dreaming and working out what we were going to do). We were given a 7-day snagging with site. The assistant site manager we dealt with was always really friendly and helpful and even gave us extra bits to help with our DIY such as when we were changing a few kitchen cabinets around. The snagging was quickly sorted via site tradespeople and was mostly minor decoration items. So far, nothing has been an issue and the majority has been sorted within a few weeks. We still have a few items but are waiting for better and warmer weather.

I’ve only raised one issue with the central customer care team who responded but have yet to organise a resolution (some marks on a very large bathroom mirror). So I can’t comment much on how good they are just yet.

I think it really comes down to who’s managing the site and how they manage the trades. Luckily it seems we have a fabulous team here. We have also bought outright and I know from previous houses that some of our old neighbours had a terrible time with shared ownership houses as the housing association had to log snags with the developer and that caused massive delays and items not dealt with.

I had a couple of tradespeople who came to resolve some minor issues and remarked that they thought the houses were really well-built. One of them who was working on site here said it was the first site and company that he would actually consider buying a house from himself. Pretty good recommendation :)

I know this review is a little bit gushing in places and someone might think I’m being paid to write this - I’m not (unfortunately 🤣) Have a look at my other reviews - I like to give praise where it’s due and I certainly won’t hold back when I’ve had poor service or product!

Well done Backhouse and the Highworth team - FABULOUS house, great staff and a really well-built house 😁

"Poorly built, poorly designed, and incompetent aftercare."

I’ve held off on this review for two years, but I have given up on hoping Backhouse might turn things around for me. My advice to anybody looking at a Backhouse property would be to view the Callaway Gardens marketing material, and then come and visit the unfinished site in real life - and speak to the residents here. Don’t be fooled by this company’s skilled sales service, because it’s all downhill after that. Backhouse continues to post across their social media accounts about their values on green spaces improving mental health, whilst simultaneously diminishing mine. Poorly built, poorly designed, and incompetent aftercare.

False Advertising:

I was lied to about the property I was purchasing, in regard to what would be outside my front door. I signed off on plan diagrams which showed greenery and plants outside (a visual of this has been used on their marketing material everywhere), and then at some point throughout the buying process this was changed to a PLAY PARK and I was not notified! I would not have purchased the house had I known this. This is two metres from my front door and affects around 8 other homes who were not aware of this either.

Poor aftercare (almost non-existent):

After two years, most of my snags have not been fixed and those that have been started have been left in a really bad state. Multiple tradesmen have been sent on the same job, only to come and make the issue worse and then disappear. I’ve been left with a door with the most horrific mastic, and no finished fittings around the lock. As for the quality of all the other workmanship across my house, it’s very poor; bumpy floors, wonky ceilings and radiators. Getting a response from customer service is rare, and when you do it’s almost always an empty promise and another lie.

Riddled with design flaws:

For what appears to be a design-led company through its good branding and polished marketing material, there are multiple design flaws in their actual houses where they’ve prioritised profits over good design. There are kitchen cupboards that knock into each other, doors which knock into lightbulbs, thermostats placed in bizarre areas, three ugly drain covers in the garden, a driveway which doesn’t actually fit two cars (with you being able to get in and out the car or access the bin store)….the list goes on and on. Still, these are the least of my problems with Backhouse in comparison to the rest.

Unfinished site development is a safety hazard:

Since selling their last house on the development, coincidentally Backhouse has not come back to finish the communal areas of the site. We’ve been left with skips full of rubbish, areas fenced off and materials dumped everywhere. The roads and pavements have not been finished and are unsafe for children to be playing on (raised drains are a tripping hazard) and not okay for wheelchair users either. As for the roads, which have no tarmac, multiple residents are experiencing damage to their vehicles. We received a letter to explain the reason why they were not finished with a timeline of when it would be (and for a second I thought they might follow through on this one, but no, it’s still like driving on Salisbury plain here).

Backhouse developments do not match their high-end marketing material and my experience with them after two years has been nothing but disappointment.

"Should be investigated by trading standards"

About as much use as a parachute on a submarine

"Terrible after sales care"

Having to constantly chase them for snags to be solved even now 11 months after moving in. This company should stop building new houses until they have solved all the issues on their previous developments. There does not appear to be enough staff to deal with after sales care and snagging issues. We are left feeling that no one there cares once they have taken your money. They delete comments from unsatisfied customers on Facebook and don’t respond to negative reviews never mind actually reaching out or visiting us to put right the issues!

"Don’t believe the hype!!!!!"

If you look at a new house and the developers are backhouse…run, run away as fast as you can!!! Their aftercare is shocking, they constantly lie and just tell you anything to get you off their backs. They constantly fail to honour the snag list and I have been waiting 18 months, whenever I’ve had a meeting recently to talk about issues they just don’t turn up to the meetings. They don’t finish off sites leaving it a complete mess with skips and machinery lying about. The road surface is full of massive pot holes and is very dangerous and full of stones and rubble, we have had a few punctures already! Backhouse say the road surface has been heavily delayed by the council but Backhouse won’t temporarily patch or clear the masses of stones to even make it safe. Also they talk about innovative designs but our house has been designed by someone who hasn’t a scooby!! light switches in the most bizarre places or non where you need them. When I come into the lounge from outside I have to walk through the dark lounge and into the kitchen to turn on the lounge light then walk back into the lounge. So you think a solution would be to put a lamp on by the entrance door but there are no plugs that side of the house so the nearest plug is the entrance to the kitchen. Also in the utility only 1 single plug socket for the washing machine so no other plug for microwave or iron or anything else needed for a utility room. Also a family sized 3 bedroom house and all the space they left for the fridge freezer was big enough to fit a skinny sized freezer only which cannot open fully as it’s right next to the window and the window ledge dents the front door of the freezer. This company is so poor and I fail to understand how on earth they won any awards?! It’s not just me either most of the Callaway Garden residents are not happy. They are a shocker! You are sold a dream in a glossy brochure and end up living a nightmare!

"Very good design but customer service…"

Very good design but customer service poor. Over 7 months after moving in, most of snags not resolved, that includes snags reported first week. You just hear excuses all the time but not much being done. If you buy expect unfinished house.