Taylor Wimpey.

Would you be happy to purchase a brand new home without full legal title to the land it was built upon? Neither were we…

Our story

I’ll keep this concise and brief.

We purchased a new home from Taylor Wimpey and up to the point of exchange everything was fine. However, our solicitor contacted us in the last weeks before exchange to inform us of a major problem. He’d even been out to visit the site to check his concerns before sharing his findings.

Taylor Wimpey had pushed the land boundary and built our new home on land they didn’t own and could not give full legal title to. It’s like your neighbour extending their home into your garden and then trying to argue you shouldn’t be concerned or upset. We were alarmed, our solicitor wasn’t happy and upon consultation neither was our mortgage provider.

So how did Taylor Wimpey respond to these shared concerns?

They adopted a defensive strategy and we were told that

“It’s your choice if you wish to withdraw from the purchase”…
Michael Diffin. Regional Director Taylor Wimpey

Taylor Wimpey informed us that ‘other buyers’ would be happy to proceed with the purchase, therefore if we chose to cancel the sale that was entirely our choice and as such they considered themselves absolved of any inconvenience or lost costs this would involve. We had no choice, it was a ridiculous situation all of their making.

After some back and forth the only concession they ever offered was to agree to paying for an indemnity insurance policy that would cover some aspects of any future land ownership arguments that may arise. It would leave us exposed to other costs and difficulties that wouldn’t be covered at all.

We were distraught and extremely concerned. This was supposed to be a brand new home, hassle free and ready to go, just as they promise you in the sales office when they’re trying to get you onto the hook. We had no sensible choice but to abandon the sale and walk away with a myriad of implications.

Destitute

We’d cancelled our rental agreement on our present home and could not rescind or rearrange to stay. In a matter of weeks we were to be effectively homeless. A week before having to leave we managed to arrange to move in to a family members spare room. This meant we had to move all of our belongings into storage, a considerable expense and extremely stressful.

It took us 10 months to find another home to buy. In that time we’d lost legal expenses, had increased travel to and from work, the market had grown so our buying power had been reduced and the strain of living in someone’s spare room had taken a considerable toll emotionally and on our general wellbeing. My wife has lupus, an autoimmune disease triggered by stress. You can only imagine the impact all of this had on her.

January 2023 Update – They banned me on Instagram so other Instagram users can’t see my posts referring to this website.

Obviously, they don’t take kindly to potential customers learning what they get up to so they’ve blocked my personal Instagram account so I can’t post on their IG account. You’d think it might be easier for them to just try and sort the damage out, but no, in true TW style they prefer to try and silence wronged customers, which tells you all you really need to know.

Fortunately, with a new email account and a new IG account I simply need to post directions to this website every few weeks to keep potential new customers up to date with how TW really do business, it’s the least I can do to stop other victims making a huge purchasing mistake. As you can read below, they also had my TrustPilot review taken down, not that they’ve got anything to hide of course…

They don’t want you to know

A while ago I decided to share our experience on Trustpilot, an online independent ratings site for customers. Within a few days Taylor Wimpey had flagged our 1 star review and damning experience in the hope of having Trustpilot remove it.

Taylor Wimpey reported this review 07.26.2020 at 17:32 for violating Trustpilot guidelines…
Trustpilot, July 2020

In a nutshell Taylor Wimpey look to report anything they don’t want potential customers to read in the hope that the reviewer can’t or doesn’t provide the evidence Trustpilot needs to verify the review so it is taken down. I thought I’d take a look at Taylor Wimpey in a bit more detail and share some statistics with you.

Taylor Wimpey & Trustpilot

Here is a breakdown of statistics on TW

20%

Leave the worst possible 1 star

12%

Of customers rate TW as Poor to Average

1 Star reviews TW have flagged to try and get them removed

The number of Bad 1 star reviews TW has managed to have removed so you can’t read them

Statistics accurate as of July 2020. Source: https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.taylorwimpey.co.uk/transparency

Conclusion

It seems Taylor Wimpey have an active campaign of suppressing negativity, instead of taking ownership of their problems and looking to resolve them and look after their customers. Think about it. They actually pay someone to monitor these sites and leave messages of thanks when all is well, but move to have Bad, Poor and Average reviews removed so you see a veneer of professionalism.

Taylor Wimpey made a mistake, heck it happens. However, when you’re building homes on land you don’t own that’s a problem. It’s their problem, it shouldn’t be yours. You shouldn’t have to listen to Regional Directors fobbing you off and insisting other phantom buyers would be happy with the situation and therefore you should be as well. It doesn’t help when you’re told it’s your choice to cancel the biggest single purchase of your life when they’ve actually just put a gun to your head.

Had they been decent, this matter could have been forgotten long ago. The last straw however, was them trying to stop me telling you about the matter placing yet again, their interests and profit potential ahead of my right to divulge a terrible experience.

We entrusted a lot of money with a self proclaimed professional house builder but were put through the mill by individuals perhaps looking to cover their own backsides when a serious problem was raised. Taylor Wimpey made an avoidable but significant error with their land parcel but compounded a serious error with a horrendous attitude and a wall of indifference, argument and contempt. I could forgive them the first error, I cannot forgive the second.

“Catastrophic”

Cannot believe I just read that. Disgraceful…
Fiona S.

“Avoid”

You never think it’ll happen to you. TW terrible!..
Will. N

“This still happens?!!”

Thank you for sharing, so bad
Michelle Taunton

Google streetview grab of site location…

Site update 5th August 2020

The site has launched well, having recorded 514 visits in the first day by mid evening. I’ve been working on search engine optimisation so it rises up the ranking chart. In time it should sit pretty close to the official TW site so more people can quickly find it and learn how these guys conduct themselves.

Comments have been very interesting from both FB and a couple of emails. I’m going to start adding a few as they come in. Seems others have had their Trustpilot reviews removed as well so it’s pretty common.

The site has also been promoted across multiple company review locations and links added to official TW Instagram pictures, scattered randomly amongst the various posts.

End of day 1 viewing figures…

End of first day site views totalled 651 with some visitors from the US, Hong Kong and a scattering across Europe. Great first day figures with the bulk being referred to the site via Facebook.

General Update

Steady stream of hits coming in direct from referrals online. Google hasn’t yet had a chance to index the site, this can take 4 days to 3-4 weeks before it gets listed in Googles page ranking system. Once that kicks in we should start to see significant traffic off the back of searches for Taylor Wimpey.

General Update

Google is yet to index the site but hopefully it will have done so this week. Some great comments coming in.

‘Me and the missus were thinking of buying a TW house but

I think we will reconsider’

Thank you Phil, probably a good idea.

‘Thought this sort of thing only happened in Spain! Can’t believe any

reputable building company would do this’.

Thank you Patricia.

Update 11th August

After posting multiple links to the site amongst TW Instagram posts their social media team have offered “to talk through your experience” with me. This will of course achieve nothing and does not resolve the underlying issue of them shutting down my Trustpilot review so you cannot read how they behaved. Had they left that alone and not tried to suppress my account this site wouldn’t have been born. I have told them if their Chief Executive, Mr. Redfern wishes to discuss the situation with me via the email listed above he can do so. The odds of that happening are of course just about zero, I think they prefer to have sites like this online rather than facing their problems head on and you know…addressing the negative outcomes of their building escapades. I guess this is the infamous TW customer service in action right now, the one based on putting fingers in ears and turning their backs.

Update 17th August 2020

So, after the first week the site is gathering an average of 64 views per day, this without the site having been indexed by Google yet, meaning a general search for Taylor Wimpey will not yet add this site to the page listings. Once that occurs I will expect to see a significant rise in exposure to potential TW customers who then stumble across this site and can educate themselves before making a purchasing decision.

Update 18th August 2020

The site has now been indexed by both Google and Bing and a direct search of the site shows it on their listing. Work will now commence to improve the page ranking so it sits next to official TW pages after a general TW search, allowing any potential customer to click and educate themselves before making a purchasing decision with these guys.

Update 18th August 2020

Instagram. I’ve been leaving links to my site on Taylor Wimpey Instagram posts, they’re literally peppered throughout their entire postings. TW have now started to provide a comment to these posts. Here’s what they write:

Hi there, we are sorry that you were dissatisfied with the service you received in 2005 when in the process of buying a home from our predecessors. I understand you have been in communication with our head office team who have offered to talk through your experience. As mentioned in my colleagues previous message, if you would like for this to be arranged please let us know. Many thanks.
Taylor Wimpey Instagram response.

So, they excuse what happened because it was in 2005. That just tells you they’ve had 15 years to sort this particular problem out but haven’t. If they can ignore a problem like this how interested do you think they’re going to be with your snagging list?

They try to distance themselves by pointing out it was their predecessor, Wimpey homes. I’m sorry, but they’re now called Taylor Wimpey. It’s a simple joining of Wimpey and Taylor Woodrow, not a different company with a different reputation and culture.

Poor effort. I told them I had no further interest wasting time discussing the matter with customer services, I spent enough time doing that when the problem first happened so why would I wish to go through that pointless exercise again? They built a home in the wrong place, this isn’t an issue of wonky light fittings or not enough topsoil in the garden.

I reminded them that if Mr. Redfern wished to engage using the site email address

taylorwimpeyterror@gmail.com

…then he could, knowing of course that the last person who will actually contact me is Mr. Redfern. This is what Taylor Wimpey does, they present an appearance that isn’t backed up with anything. If I were CEO of a building company, and funnily enough my first degree is in Architecture and fortunately a second in Computer Science (handy for building and promoting sites like this one!) then I’d be extremely concerned that my company can’t interpret a master plan and build within the confines of land my company had purchased.

Not TW though, I guess that’s why they threw their Regional Director at us who spent his time making spurious excuses and offering no practical solutions at all. More to come I’m sure.

Update 20th August 2020

We’re on Google and Bing. Sitemaps were uploaded to these 2 search engines and have now been validated. Traffic monitoring now shows we’re picking up traffic directly from search engines, meaning we’ve just broadened our reach and exposure, the site will now start to grow and in time will rise up page listings to sit closer to official TW pages…where even more people will stumble across them. I expect this to take quite some time however our average daily visitor numbers are now up to 82.

This quickly equates to roughly over 2,500 visits per month. If just 1% of those readers are shocked enough to take their business elsewhere that means this site is directly responsible for losing TW 25 sales spread across the country, potentially per month. If TW operate on a profit level based in the region of every 3rd home sold being pure profit, that would mean 8 x lets say a conservative £180,000 which amounts to £1,440,000.

The internet is a powerful medium, fortunately it’s enabling people who would have been forced to stay quiet to voice and educate other buying members of the public.

Update 8th September 2020

With permission from Julia who sent me a message I’ve shared her feedback.

Thank you so much for sharing. We were looking at new build for my son but now I am looking at something established and certainly will not look at Taylor Wimpey in the same light.
Julia S.

Update 14th September 2020

More messages from 2 people who would have been a TW customer but read this site and have changed their mind. Thanks to Mrs. Hanna & Mrs. Morgan for getting in touch.

It was very helpful indeed and has made us reconsider even looking at this builder for our son who is currently looking at property.
Mrs. Hanna.

Thank you for reporting this absolute nightmare as I have been looking at a new development in Kent nearer my family. I will certainly not be pursuing my search with TW ANYWHERE!
Mrs. Morgan.

Update 16th September 2020

Raising awareness of the site and their conduct has been developing. I now leave links to the site on all of their Instagram posts and web data shows me where visitors are being directed from. I’m currently averaging 64 visits per day from a number of sources, which per month equates to roughly 1,900 hits, a very healthy number. Here’s a screen grab of a TW Instagram post with the link to this site.

You’d think having a motivated and disgruntled ex customer air their grubby practices across the internet would be something they’d want to discourage but no, they don’t appear to be ashamed at all. I’m happy to do this for many, many years, I’ve put the work in and the more I can educate the buying public so they can reconsider a relationship with this company the better.

Update 15th October 2020

The site welcomed its 5000th visitor today since launch. That’s a lot of people educated in a pretty short period of time. As the site is increasingly recognised by search engines our visibility should increase. Looking forward to reaching 10,000 visitors sometime next year based on current average daily hits.

Update 8th June 2021

The site has been recording a very steady stream of visitors. I’ve had a few emails from people asking to have their issues posted but I’ve had to decline in order to keep this story clear. TW go on issuing glossy marketing pictures with no effort to provide remedy for the customers it has let down. Their daily strategy appears to be to allow these horror stories to go unchecked, unless they are posted on review sites where they then challenge the post to have it removed, as they did with mine. They play the numbers game, they perpetually hope there will be a stream of suckers that aren’t educated as to how they operate and ignore their disgruntled customers. Long term this will catch up with them, particularly with the advent of social media and web sites like this. Fortunately, it is far easier to warn other potential buyers than it has ever been and that can only be a good thing.

Home

Taylor Wimpey.

Destitute

They don’t want you to know

Taylor Wimpey & Trustpilot

Conclusion

Further reading on Taylor Wimpey…

Taylor Wimpey.

Destitute

They don’t want you to know

Taylor Wimpey & Trustpilot

Conclusion

Further reading on Taylor Wimpey…

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