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Buyer beware
My partner and I recently tried to purchase a flat in Woolwich through New Build Sales. We negotiated a price that was agreed with the developer and went ahead with all of the legal searches etc. The day before exchange of contracts, we were suddenly contacted by Alex at NBS who informed us that the developer wanted more money or would withdraw from the sale. It was a significant sum of money, increasing the purchase price by 6%. When we asked the reason for this, we were told the developer 'just wants more money'.
We declined to pay the increased price and said we would discuss our next steps as a couple before responding. Despite this, Alex went back to the developer and told them we had agreed to pay the additional £25,000. We refused to pay more than the price we had agreed three months earlier and the sale ultimately fell through, but not before our solicitor had drawn down funds from the lender (believing everything was on course to exchange/complete on an agreed date) which has caused us all sorts of headaches. We were also forced to move out of our rented property as we had already given notice, believing we were just days away from completing. All in all, a nightmare.
New Build Sales provided zero support during all of this, were rude and unpleasant to deal with, and were slow in responding to the most basic requests such as agreeing a time for the valuation survey to take place - making the entire process even more painful than it needed to be.
Finally, it's worth noting that all of the positive Google reviews you see here have been lined up by one of their sales agents, who emailed us just before we were due to complete, sharing the link to Google Places and asking if we could write something positive as it could impact her "promotion opportunities".
Avoid if you can. There are plenty of other estate agents in London!... Read more
12th Mar 2017 (7 years ago)