Last autumn we were so excited buying our new Stewart Milne home complete with "Landscape gardens with compliments". What a joke!What they don't tell you is that the designer worked at the "Everglades in Florida" and not at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh. The only alligators here were the sales reps and site manager urging you purchase with those famous words"Yes this problem will be fixed for you before you get the keys". What is more galling is that we were asked to take the house 2 weeks before our originally planned date to enable sales to meet their targets but were assured that the house would be completed by that earlier date. When you are told that your new house will be thoroughly inspected by the company before transfer you assume that this is carried out on the whole property purchased including garden. However, if the inspection is carried out by "Mr Spiritlevel" you can be rest assured that if it involves getting dust on his hands or dirt on his shoes it will not be inspected. How could he miss a window ledge running off level by 10 mm or the rear garden not being turfed? - because he would not stand on the back garden soil as his shoes would get dirty! After an 8 month saga and multiple attempts to resolve the drainage issues which were unsuccessful the Construction Director agrees that they have failed to meet our requirements ie provide us with front and back gardens which are not quagmires but will not do any further work and is now hiding behind the "3m from the house wall guidline".
From our perspective the most concerning aspect of the drainage problem was the deceit of the sales executive and site manager who waited until after the financial transaction was completed and we were given the keys to advise us of a "small drainage problem" but that this would be resolved within the next few days! Subsequently we were told by another contractor that when the ground was being rotovated prior to laying the turf the machine sunk and mechanical equipment had to be used to recover it. All in all this has been a nightmare experience which has only been hindered by Customer Care who are a total waste of time. Irrespective of what you ask them you very rarely get a written reply and this seems to be a policy adopted by Stewart Milne employees - to cover their own backs. Sending email copies to the Head of Customer Services bears little fruit as she always appears to be on holiday and all you get is her out of office reply. In conclusion we wish we had never got involved with Stewart Milne and can only advise potential buyers to tread warily as once they have your money and staff get their bonus they could not give a toss!
From our perspective the most concerning aspect of the drainage problem was the deceit of the sales executive and site manager who waited until after the financial transaction was completed and we were given the keys to advise us of a "small drainage problem" but that this would be resolved within the next few days! Subsequently we were told by another contractor that when the ground was being rotovated prior to laying the turf the machine sunk and mechanical equipment had to be used to recover it. All in all this has been a nightmare experience which has only been hindered by Customer Care who are a total waste of time. Irrespective of what you ask them you very rarely get a written reply and this seems to be a policy adopted by Stewart Milne employees - to cover their own backs. Sending email copies to the Head of Customer Services bears little fruit as she always appears to be on holiday and all you get is her out of office reply. In conclusion we wish we had never got involved with Stewart Milne and can only advise potential buyers to tread warily as once they have your money and staff get their bonus they could not give a toss!