Hopkins Homes Colchester reviews

★★★★★ 2/5

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Check your wood burning stove installation.

We have just moved into a five year old house built by this builder and would describe the work inside as shoddy with rather cheap, low spec, fittings considering the high cost of the house. The worst thing however, is discovering the wood burning stove had been installed in breach of regulations with insufficient gap between the oak lintel and the flue. This is of course a fire risk which currently would not be met by insurance. We are having it rectified (as it will now be too late to go through NHBC). Our advice is to check very carefully if you have bought a similar house recently. The regulations date from 2001.

LAgar · 28 November 2019

★★★★★ 5/5

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Site agent Caroline Hare was very…

Site agent Caroline Hare was very helpful and easy going on both visits.Marketing suite appears to be having problems with their computer and printer which needs sorting out soon.Adrian Slaney

ADRIAN · 31 July 2020

★★★★★ 5/5

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Excellent customer service and a quality home.

From start to finish, we have recieved excellent customer service from Hopkins (Ely). As first time buyers we were well supported from reservation, to sale, to move. All our queries were responded to very quickly and with all the detail we needed. The aftercare team dealt with a list of superficial fixes very quickly and still now, 7 months on, if we spot something that needs tweaking, they are friendly and helpful. We are grateful for the incentives we were offered and although we didn't go for the added extras (mark-up is high), we found that our budget was catered for well.The house itself is built well and has a more distinguished look than a lot of other new builds.Thank you Hopkins for our beautiful home.

RHC · 22 November 2019

★★★★★ 1/5

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If your thinking of purchasing a home…

If your thinking of purchasing a home from Hopkins Homes, please be aware the after care you receive is extremely poor.Unfortunately I have been in my property for over two years and still have outstanding issues.I have been lied to on two occasions by the aftercare team which has been confirmed by our convenience of having cctv outside the property.Avoided when called to ask when the issues in my home will be rectified.Build so far been fine workmanship horrendous!Hugely disappointed. As long as you don’t mind never getting a reasonable response to your problems after you move in, and want your house still unfit after two years, go ahead !

J · 20 November 2019

★★★★★ 4/5

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I have very much enjoyed living in my…

I have very much enjoyed living in my Hopkins home, I did have a few issues with my boiler which has resulted in hopkins being prompt to come out and make necessary repairs. The house itself has been amazing and I feel so lucky to have such a beautiful home as my new house. I do feel Hopkins could take some more time in their customer care to directly contact each house owner as currently, you have to contact them more than once before you get a response, and response time can be slow. I would recommend buying a Hopkins home and I would consider purchasing another Hopkins home.

Jenna · 20 November 2019

★★★★★ 5/5

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Very positive intervention from Lee Barnard National Sale’s Director for Hopkins Homes - thank you

I have had a strong intervention from Hopkins National Sales and Marketing Director Lee Barnard. He has personally intervened and pulled my completion date forward considerably to 28th November. I am very grateful for his intervention and he has certainly fully responded to my customer needs. So looking forward to getting moved into our new home on the 28th.... thanks very much to Hopkins and the team for achieving a 5 week reservation to completion. I am a delighted customer - thank you

Steve · 9 November 2019

★★★★★ 1/5

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Very bad customer care!!

Very bad customer care, buyer beware!Poor service, poor communication, and a lack of clarity and a flexibility from their so called “customer charter”, not worth the paper it is written on. Following purchasing a £300K Hopkins homes house, my mother had various health problems which caused her to be hospitalised during the first 2 years, and was affected in mental and physical health. Rather than honour the long snagging list, the so called customer care head manager refused to make good on the repairs as the email could not be located, due to the lack of company continuity due to the various customer care advisors who do not stay long, due to the many and constant customer complaints!!

JRuggles · 9 September 2019

★★★★★ 5/5

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Saxon Meadows, Capel St Mary, feedback

Your sales rep Katie Vinyard was consistently helpful and professional. Katie was well informed, had an eye for detail, is an excellent listener, and very personable as well.Overall, an excellent experience.

Chris · 21 January 2020

★★★★★ 1/5

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Beware the future Management Charge Potential.

My wife and I were dowsizing and thought that we liked the look of a Hopkins house and we were willing to spend in excess of £700K.We were, however, advised that there was an annual management charge but this was "only £25 a year". We requested details of the identity of the managers and the wording which imposed these charges. Initially I was informed that it was necessary to reserve a property and a contract would be issued to our solicitor who would explain it to us. I was insulted that the suggested route inferred that I was unable to read and understand English and further if I decided I did not like the terms a proportion of the deposit would be non refundable. After some time they decided to forward the relevant section of the deeds which indicated that the annual charges were "at the sole discretion of the managers". In layman terms they could charge what they wished and the purchaser had no input. On pointing this out to the sales staff they did not refute the position and I, therefore, decided not to proceed with the purchase. My advice to any would be purchaser is be aware of the "all-embracing" nature of the contractual wording and the future implication of charges. It also interesting to note that the identity of the management company was never disclosed and I am left to ponder why!

E · 23 August 2019

★★★★★ 1/5

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Cooker,fridge don’t work we paid an…

Cooker,fridge don’t work we paid an overpriced premium for these with Hopkins, drains are shoddy done and make my toilet and washing machine smell, paint is so thin it flakes off wall and you can’t wipe it clean as u see plasterboard, bits have fallen out of windows and windows at front paint have peeled again due to the watered down paint. I hate this house and the development can’t wait to move

Carly · 9 August 2021

★★★★★ 5/5

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St Georges Place, Sprowston

Could not be happier in my 3 storey home which I bought in August last year; surprised myself with a new build as was on a mission to buy a cottage! but unlike the majority of new builds Hopkins add character to their houses, the space is great, and the build quality is poles apart from other developers. From beginning to end the service I have received has been faultless - for me it worked that I wasn't 'sold' to by Shaun (site negotiator) as such but Shaun did provide me with all the info I needed along the way to reach a decision. The very few minor snags after I moved in were all resolved quickly and smoothly by customer services and the Site Manager / his team - could not have been more helpful or professional. Oh and I have the shortest commute to work ever ! - 5 mins - result!

Tonia · 13 August 2019

★★★★★ 5/5

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Friendly and trustworthy

Without doubt, one of the best buying experiences to date. When purchasing a home, you want to feel trust, honesty and care... the moment we met Sean we felt comfortable; then he showed us our dream home and we fell in love. From that moment on we could not have been more impressed. The whole sales process was made simple and more importantly flexible. We now enjoy living in our home and have fantastic neighbours, with credit mostly due to Sean. Thanks for everything you’ve done and bHelped us with! Adam & Charlotte

Adam · 10 August 2019

★★★★★ 1/5

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Nice Houses, Terrible Customer Experience

I first decided to purchase a home from Hopkins Homes having rented a property built by them and being very happy with the style, quality and after care service. The house I am purchasing is lovely, has great style and is in a great looking development, however expecting the customer service to match, I was sorely mistaken, the customer experience is appalling. On the face of it, the sales representatives are very friendly, unfortunately they are not supported by an organisation that cares about the customer. I begin my experience before reservation with a request that the internal walls be painted white instead of magnolia, a simple request given that no painting had started, the ceilings would be white anyway, making the painting job easier for the painters, they’d also have the paint available. I went ahead with reservation before this question was answered, given this was a relatively small issue. The answer I got back was that the property couldn’t be painted anything other than magnolia, because “build stage 5 has passed”, i.e. the roof has been put on, this still confuses me to this day. I managed to find out that the painting contractor also works for some of their other sites, so I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t be short of white paint! I requested the same white paint multiple times, I even had the cheek of the sales manager suggest they could have done it if I’d made the sale conditional on it, essentially, they can paint it white, but they don’t really care. When I complained (before painting had started), all the painting was then done that week, in magnolia, almost out of spite. When I now move in, one of my first tasks will be to paint over in white, a waste of my time, and their painters. What makes this more frustrating is that Hopkin’s are willing to do anything that makes them easy money, they were more than happy to install integrated kitchen appliances with a decent mark-up, the “build stage 5” no changes threshold didn’t seem to matter there. After reservation you are urged to exchange contracts (including 10% deposit) within 28 days from reservation, I have no issue with this if the same expedience can be expected from Hopkins Homes, it is not. On initial viewing of the property, the property would be ready in “2-3 months”, after reservation this was 4 months, after exchange this was 5 months. I now have the end of my rental contract looming and am still awaiting a date from Hopkins Homes, I’m looking forward to being homeless! At the start of the process, the lack of any clarity is put down to “needing to check the 13-week plan”, as the process moves forward, Hopkins remain stuck to a 2-week notice period and will not budge on telling you any dates. We’re now well within the 13-week window to completion, so either, Hopkins simply don’t care to help their customers, or their planning is so incompetent that they don’t trust their 13-week plan to give dates, or estimates. With the delays pushing on, I have just got back from visiting the house for the 3rd time in 3 weeks, nothing has progressed on the property in that time… I’m happy they are enjoying sitting on my deposit. During the legal process before exchange we were presented with the development plans to sign to agree with the property boundary, both myself and my partner were surprised, we were adamant that the boundary was different to that originally shown to us on the plans in the sales office, we spoke in length about a tree that was going to be planted, that tree would now would appear to be in a fence. We questioned the boundary. The house next door has already sold, and a family moved in, their property was complete, including lawn laid by Hopkins, our property was still being developed, had only soil in the garden, the property divide was clear by the grass, and supported by the plans. Eventually the response on our query came back to say we were wrong, we went to the sales office to check the plans, we’re adamant that the plans had been re-printed. At the property, grass has also been laid in the already sold property (after completion), to extend the boundary, and a fence erected right where the tree was planned to go. I’m now waiting in anticipation to see where they now try and squeeze a tree in because they’ve taken the logical spot with a fence that definitely wasn’t in that position originally. The boundary issue isn’t a particularly big issue for me, it’s not a huge change, I’d still buy the property either way, what is an issue is that Hopkins couldn’t admit that they were wrong, and instead make the customer seem wrong. Owning up to an honest mistake would make the company far more reputable. I’m still very much looking forward to moving into my new home, but I’d certainly struggle to recommend Hopkins Homes to anyone unless they improve their act. My requests to Hopkins during this process wouldn’t have cost them much, if anything, but would have certainly led to a much happier customer. Moving house is stressful enough, if you go with Hopkins Homes, look forward to an experience more stressful than you imagined!

James · 6 July 2019

★★★★★ 5/5

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Saxon Meadows, Capel st Mary

We purchased our new family home on the Hopkins Homes development at Saxon Meadows, Capel st Mary in April '2019.The house is amazing and sits in a picturesque beautiful setting. Our home has been built to a very high standard where every detail has been well crafted. Our experience of the staff at Hopkins Homes has been excellent from the outset. Our site managers Adam and Howard have been responsive to any issues we had which were resolved almost instantly.Without exception though the real jewel in the crown has to be Katie Vinyard who runs the sales office on the site (accompanied by some other superstars too!).... There are too many sales people that just focus on getting deals done and then disappear once the money is paid. Katie however, genuinely cares and for this reason it is no exaggeration to say that she really does exceed expectations!The experience has been wonderful and we would not hesitate to recommend Hopkins Homes.

Craig · 16 May 2019

★★★★★ 5/5

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Shaun has been very helpful from the…

Shaun has been very helpful from the first time we met him. He is prompt and certainly knows his stuff !!! Good,honest answers.. thankyou !!

Jennifer · 2 July 2021

★★★★★ 5/5

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Priors grange saxmundham

We purchased our house when it was literally about 3 bricks high - at the time our Sales consultant was Katie Vineyard and she was beyond amazing nothing was too much trouble even my millions of questions about the process of mortgage solicitor process she answered everything and more and also helped me realise things when I was beyond confused!The house is gorgeous and exactly how I imagined when looking at the plans - katie helped us pick all the cabinets tiles etc and we are over the moon at the result. Our only negative is that katie got moved sites and she left about 6/8 weeks before we completed we were devastated as after her amazing help the replacement was nowhere near to Katie’s standard. We actually reserved the house when only my partner had met katie - he didn’t even want a new build and was sold it by her I already knew what house I wanted in my dream world and that’s how we ended up buying this. I really do think if Katie wasn’t the sales consultant at this time we wouldn’t be living in this house.Of course with any new builds there will be snags luckily so far all of ours have been minor and cosmetic really but the site manager and assistant site manager when aware of problems have immediately helped us. I am quite an instant demanding person and they have only ever been more than helpful!We would buy from Hopkins again and would recommend to anyone.

Kirsty · 26 April 2019

★★★★★ 1/5

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Stanway

The quality of the homes are ok but the customer care team both pre and post purchase are very poor. We have had a list of issues for both the property and the surrounding site for 3+ years and still have on-going problems. There are a number of issues with the areas of the site not being developed as per the original plans and even with 2 councillors chasing Hopkins Homes for over a year there has been limited and poor communication, and no improvements. So much so that the safety inspectors are yet to sign off the supposedly 'playground' a year after it was finished. That says something in itself.I have never purchased a property from any of the other large scale developers so unable to compare, however I certainly won't be purchasing from Hopkins again and would not recommend based on their approach to customer care (generic template responses).

Spicer · 31 March 2019

★★★★★ 5/5

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St James park

St James park, ElyMoved in around 3 weeks ago and the house has been delightful. The builders and managers on site have been very helpful with any issues we have had being first time buyers. They clearly take a lot of pride in what they do, and it shows! Sharon the sales consultant has been brilliant to have as a point of contact, she has kept us up to date and helped us throughout the process from start to finish, making it seem easy. We moved into the property on time, and the finishing personal touches has made the process enjoyable. Myself and my partner are very impressed by Hopkins homes and would highly recommend them.

Rebecca · 8 March 2019

★★★★★ 2/5

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Hopkins Homes pride themselves on…

Hopkins Homes pride themselves on building quality homes, unfortunately they don't follow through with customer service. The customer care team, seem to be nothing more than an obstructive firewall to getting issues resolved, Although polite, their main focus is to be as unhelpful as possible so you go away and sort the issues yourself. Although on balance very please with the house, customer care needs improvement, everyone I've spoken with on this Alconbury site has had a poor experience... It's a shame.

Geoff · 4 March 2019

★★★★★ 2/5

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Alconbury Weald

Alconbury Weald - 76 snags and counting, ranging from all carpets within the house losing tension, tiles not being level, 1X warped back gate then replacement fitted at an angle meaning doesn't close properly, window sills not painted, and those which are peeling, lose brick within garage, live cable not buried underground, bare live cables stuffed into metallic wall partitions, drafts through all sash windows, extractor fan screwed to ceiling and not vented anywhere, shower leaking into living room, 10mm gap where wall tiles meet floor tiles filled with silicone, 1 inch gap between bathroom door and floor, electrical certificates never received Hopkins do not have them. High staff turn over at customer services resulting in unnecessary delays, endless amounts of repetition sending the same email over and over again. All of the above has been raised countless times with Hopkins, some fixed some not and unfortunately some of the more serious issues have been ignored. Its such a shame that customer care is so poor as Ann does such a good job in the Office at point of sale, if only the rest of the company shared her passion and attention to detail. Overall very disappointed with the finish of our property. I have held off writing this review as I believe in giving people a chance to fix things so that a positive review can be left however nearly a year in and do not feel any closer.

Tim · 7 January 2019

★★★★★ 5/5

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We have only just reserved at Thurston…

We have only just reserved at Thurston Park but so far we are very happy with our experience. Alison Swain is friendly, very helpful and efficient.

Liz · 25 February 2021

★★★★★ 2/5

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my daughter bought a brand new bungalow…

my daughter bought a brand new bungalow built by Hopkins homes, what a load of rubbish, the under floor heating is expensive to run, the kitchen is very small no work top space and water has been coming in the French doors and after 5 visits they are going to replace the doors, these new builds are put up by clowns not proper tradesmen, they are so small you would be better off buying an older house that at least has had all the faults sorted.

Mr · 24 November 2018

★★★★★ 5/5

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Quality from start to finish. Colne Gardens, Brightlngsea.

Having looked at a number of new builds, we came across Hopkins Homes, which were building in our local area. From start to finish we couldn't have been happier. At the early stages when we first reserved our house / plot, there were a few points about layouts / landscaping we weren't to keen on, and before we knew it, Hopkins had taken everything we had said into consideration and made a number of changes for us, without us even owning the house yet! Once we got the keys, we found a few minor issues, all that were resolved within a few days, and still after 6 months of living there they come out promptly to any issues that arise. We really couldn't recommend them highly enough. Our biggest fear was once the site was complete, having cars parked everywhere, blocking roads, like on a lot of new sites, however Hopkins have carefully thought out about parking, and visitor spaces and we have never had an issue. Would not hesitate buying another home from them.

Owen · 19 November 2018

★★★★★ 5/5

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Watermill Meadow - Stoke Holy Cross

We moved into plot 34 at Watermill Meadow last Saturday 3rd November.We would like to express our thanks to the Sales and Site Teams for all their hard work.Over the past year we have received a great deal of help and cooperation from the Sales Team which enabled us to secure plot 34.We are very impressed with the quality of build and the attention to detail both internally and externally. Clearly you have a very strong team.As you can gather, we are delighted with the outcome.

Laurence · 15 November 2018