Bett Homes

[brian]

We're renting in a Betts home at the moment - a Thurso.

I'd provide a direct link to it, but the Betts Home site is bloody awful, and completely lacks the ability to provide information usefully and easily to visitors.

A key complaint here is that you can't even see floorplans of their many designs, and if you select a development location, the different designs available are only viewable to scroll though in a small iframe.

That said, although the website is poor, the home can be pretty decent.

There's a wide range of designs to look at, pitched at different budget levels, not least a half-dozen or so 4 bedroom designs to choose from.

And these properties are nice to live in - they have been well thought out, especially with families in mind, and there's a good use of space in most of the properties.

Funnily enough, you wouldn't always guess that from the showhouses - their designer has managed to make the showhouse Thurso look a lot smaller than the one we're living in.

By opting for strong dark colours and filling floorspace with bulky furniture, they really have made the showhouse property look very small, in comparison to the neutral and light colours in our rental property.

There have been issues with finishes - rusted new windows, damp due to insulation not having been laid properly, and when they put in the laminate flooring they took off the skirting boards and then simply nailgun'ed them back to the wall - leaving big holes in the skirting.

Overall, it gives the impression of a corproate company interesting in building quick on the cheap, and failing to make the proper quality checks afterwards.

However, I guess this is something easily perceived from a number of building developers, and at the end of the day it does need saying that when Betts homes are nice, they are very nice.

A note of caution, though - the finished home is pretty bog-standard, and I was pretty frustrated when the sales agent refused point blank to discuss "upgrade" decoration packages that Betts offer unless I'd already reserved a proeprty.

This immediately makes me wonder if they don't push on the upsell here, so it's worth bearing in mind that with a new Betts home, you may need to set aside a substantial amount of cash to do up the property, either yourself, or via one of the mysterious Betts upgrade packages.

http://www.betthomes.co.uk

[brian]

Sad bit of news with my otherwise glowing praise for the company:
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/mammal/news.shtml

Seems that in a development in St Helens in 2004, Betts Homes dredged a protected waterway on a nature reserve to improve drainage, without consent or permission having been optained, resulting in the destruction of a key habitat for the water vole, which is a protected species in the UK.

Considering the profits Betts would make on a 200 home development, I'd be surprised if the fines were anything but a pin-prick to them.

Still, I can only hope Betts generally are more concerned about such issues after that case. I've really enjoyed living in the Thurso design, and can certainly recommend it as a house intelligently designed for comfortable family residence.

Having looked at other house builders, one thing that really strikes out about the Thurso is how well they've worked with lighting - the front door looks through to the back patio doors, so there's always good light through the place.

[Jackie K]

We thought like you that the Bett Homes were rather nice.
But having early birded a Bett Home some months ago we are having no luck at all in gaining a copy of the deed of conditions for the site. There is also a great reluctance to give out a definite price for the house and we are worried that it will reach the dreaded £250,000 before we sign the dotted line even though when we early birded it was advertised at £246,995.
Their policy seems to be to keep you totally in the dark, the site agent will only give out information if absolutely pushed. When calling head office for more info we are fobbed off back to site agent. Our solicitor thought he may have more luck but he has hit a stone wall.
We have never bought a new build before and thought it would be less hassle, exactly when do you you get to see the deed of site conditions?
Jackie