zoglet

Anyone had any experience of this company?

Would love to hear of the good the bad and the ugly.

Z

Justcol

We havent got one but they are building a few just round the corner from us.
The houses they build do look smaller than the pictures and plans suggest
but i guess thats just artistic licence.
I cant comment on the quality but they dont look any better or worse than
anything else thats going up around them.

zoglet

Thanks for replying Colandros. There is a show-home in Palmy that I will visit, I was more wondering if anyone had first hand knowledge of what their build is like. I guess no one does?

Psychopandy

We drove past a sign for 'Signature homes' yesterday and i wondered exactly the same as you asked.

Was hoping you would have a better response, to answer my queries also x

Justcol

The only thing i would recomend if buying a new house is to ensure
you DONT buy one of the many being built buy the army of asian builders
who are throwing them up all over the place.
We have seen first hand the poor quality of these homes and they will
not carry a masterbuild warranty.
Always ask who built it and do some research into the company.

zoglet

Apparently Signature no longer have Master Builder approval - it seems they have their own scheme which surpasses the Master Build standards (or so Signature say). TBH it sounded a bit iffy to me. Will defo try to get to the bottom of that one!

Justcol

valid only as long as they are in business

zoglet

I hear that! I guess its like a verbal contract,which as everyone knows, is worth less than the paper its written on!

Went to view the showhome at Palmy this afternoon and have to say the finish was better than I had expected. Now, if I can only find the right bit of land...

hball

From someone who was in the industry!

If you read the small print of the Master Builders guarantee you may be a little less than happy as to exactly what is covered. Closely check out the limitations and payments they will make should you run into trouble.

Signature Homes challenged the guarantee and decided to offer a more comprehensive package - but only for their homes! Again thoroughly check out what they cover.

A common misunderstanding when selecting a builder is that choosing to build with a franchise offers the security of the franchisor stepping in should things go wrong. Sadly, not true. Check your contract and you will usually find you are building with a private building company who own the brand for the area, not the master franchise who is after all not a building company but a 'marketing company'. Having said that, and on the plus side, most franchises are owned by highly respected and well established local building companies.

Not to promote Signature but as far as I remember part of their guarantee is that should a Signature franchisee be unable to complete the build a nearby franchise WILL step in and complete it at the price of the original contract. The important point here is that the second franchise will have to do this at a loss if the bulk of the contract price was already paid to the first franchise.

I have been out of the loop for a while but I seem to remember that other building franchises were looking to follow Signature and develop more comprehensive guarantees.

Hope that helps

zoglet

Wow-thanks Hball- lots to think about,(and readup on) there!

This week I am going to try to repeat the process with Gardener and/or Reid homes -will start separate threads for these as I am pretty sure people on here will have used them. Meanwhile we are going to look at some older homes today as we are still not sure whether to go the build or buy ready made route.

Anyone got any thoughts on that issue- prebuilt or build?