Trusted Agent profile · Penicuik
★★★★★
1,809 reviews across 2 platforms
Mauricewood Road, Penicuik, EH26 0FS
Part of Avant Homes Scotland East, see every office.
Avant Homes Scotland East's office in Penicuik, at Mauricewood Road, is rated 3.7 out of 5 across 1,809 reviews on two platforms, including 4 Google reviews rated 4.0.
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Every review we hold for the Penicuik office, from every platform, shown as written. First names only.
5/5
TrustpilotQuick efficient and tidy service
Andy Jones fixed our sink and he was helpful, friendly, and professional. Thank you so much.
Hi Madison, thank you for taking the time to share your feedback! We’re thrilled you had a 5-star experience with us. We will pass your feedback onto Andy.
2/5
TrustpilotAllenson view plot 19
External Build quality and location of property is very good but for the price the internal quality is very poor, doors are like cardboard, cheap materials used all over, small details missed, the premium price doesn’t bring premium finishes! You need to send email after email before anything gets done and we are still waiting for work to be done 6 month on - customer service is terrible. Personally I would not recommend avant since the takeover.
2/5
TrustpilotUnfinished estate, Avant don’t seem to care
Like many, initially we were very happy. We loved our house, initial snagging sometimes needed chasing but got done. Sadly, the quality of workmanship underneath the exterior is sometimes poor. We recently had to replace our flooring in the bathroom, because of a slow leak due to a poorly installed toilet. Sadly, this was just outside our two year warranty, so no point pursuing with Avant. We now wonder what other issues will come to light in the coming years.The estate has been done for about a year now, but the roads/paths have been left in a deteriorating & frankly dangerous state. People have actually reported being injured to Avant, but still there is no progress! We are promised timescales, which pass by with no work done. This has to be a deliberate choice by Avant, given the length of time. Residents are beginning to think that when they’ve finished the other local estate then they’ll just vanish and leave us with our roads/paths unfinished permanently. As an example of how much Avant actually values their customers, I think it says it all.
2/5
TrustpilotJackton Green
There really isn't much good to say about our experience with Avant other than the site managers we have here at Jackton Green, specifically Davie, Alex and Jimmy who are the only Avant employees we've dealt with who actually want to help. The sales process with Avant was horrific as the Sales rep unfortunately just isn't very good at her job and probably lacks basic customer service training that Avant won't provide. Their Customer Care team is non existent, you will hear from them once (a week after moving in) and then good luck hearing from them again after this. Their CEO and board of directors have literally stripped out every added extra Avant used to offer as standard and continue to charge the same price. If it wasn't for Davie, Alex and Jimmy this would one a one star review and there would nothing positive to say about Avant. Be wary of buying a house with these guys.
5/5
TrustpilotLynsey in the Sales Office was…
Lynsey in the Sales Office was absolutely fantastic. Spent a lot of time explaining everything and knew exactly which property would be most suited to my requirements
5/5
TrustpilotFirst time buyers experience
The company have done amazing helping us buy our first home and so supportive for first time buyers that’s don’t have a clue what they are doing 😂 constantly giving us updates of a future home which we love! Don’t have a bad thing to say about them.
2/5
TrustpilotAvant
Purchased an Avant new build property in Jan 2020 (Godwin Vale). Internally, the finishes are good and the customer service helped avidly to remediate snagging issues. However, now we are out of the 2 year warranty period, numerous “potential” structural issues are beginning to occur, (cavity wall ties rusting) which the NHBC have no interest in. Leaving us in limbo with potentially a large bill to foot.Also, roads, paths and kerbs around the site are still not finished and there has been 0 contact between Avant and residents on when the issues will be rectified.
2/5
TrustpilotWe were planning to buy a house from…
We were planning to buy a house from avant and we were very happy initially to the stage of nearly exchanging contracts when our buyer pulled out .Once this happens Avant give you 2 weeks to find another buyer.Don’t plan on buying from this developer until your 100% sure contracts will exchange or potentially you can lose a lot of money that’s been paid for extras and your reservation fee.
5/5
TrustpilotAvant homes staff Laura is brilliant
Avant homes staff Laura is brilliant, she has been always helpful to our family in home defect repairs. She is skillful, efficient and polite.
5/5
TrustpilotSo far - so good!
Kathryn has been really helpful so far in the process. I feel well informed - but not pressured. So far, a friendly and comfortable experience.
3/5
TrustpilotRushed to finish - waterside quarter, chesterfield
This is really a review of a few different parts, each of which are broken down below.The good…Sales, the support and advice throughout the sales/buying process was fantastic, helpful, polite, customer focused, always returned calls and emails. Hard to find any fault.The property itself, well designed and spacious, with each area feeling useful and like they got the most out of it.The bad…Part way through the build the spec was changed, some changes were made (albeit small ones) that made no sense, for example there was an area above the hob on the extraction with two cupboard doors, inside these were three small shelves, perfect for cooking spices….. on the “new spec” the cupboard doors are still there… but two of the shelves aren’t, rendering it not only useless but also pointless. There are some other small things like this that it would have been nice to be informed about, I’m still baffled as to why they did this.The ugly…A lot of work was done the two days before I got the keys….. and I honestly wish they had kept the keys for another week!!! It was obvious the last few days were a rush job, the finish was absolutely lousy! The paint looked in areas like it had been put on with a mop and bucket!!! I could go into a lot of detail here, but I’ve gone over the issues that many times now with the “customer care” team that I get tired just thinking about it!The joy of a new build is supposed to be the convenience of moving your stuff in and starting to live, not to have to spend days waiting in for tradesmen to not bother turning up, hours on calls that go unreturned, months waiting for optional extras that were missed originally and are seemingly next to impossible to acquire. It’s made it difficult to settle and enjoy the place when you have to empty rooms and wardrobes etc out again so they can be put in to the condition that they should have been when they were handed over.
1/5
TrustpilotThe most horrendous company I’ve ever…
The most horrendous company I’ve ever dealt with, we initially reserved a house with avant in may (this is our 4th new build so we do understand the process!) absolutely no contact from when we reserved the property, no commitment with a date of completion or even an update on the build process like promised. After speaking to multiple people and reading a lot of reviews regarding Avant we decided to withdraw from buying the House. We got promised a refund would be processed and still a month later this hasn’t happened, you repeatedly get ignored, have rude emails from members of staff when they finally do reply. DO NOT BUY AN AVANT HOME! Useless
1/5
TrustpilotAvant are the worst builder you could…
Avant are the worst builder you could ever buy from. They will half build you a house then refuse to fix the issues you have with it as soon as you submit your NHBC feedback. After this, they get fed up of you trying to contact them and they will simply ignore you. Emails, phone calls, no response. You pay £100ks for a property and once they have your money that’s that. The warranty they claim to provide isn’t worth the breathe it is uttered in and should be investigated by NHBC for it. Do not buy from this builder otherwise you will regret it.
2/5
TrustpilotGo elsewhere
On my 5th or 6th site manager now @ Shelton Village in Earl shilton..Weekly emails no response, very slow to get anything done from the snag lists, (290ish snags found)Incomplete garden for 2 summers now Brick work & damaged being ignored. They create more damage and more jobs to be done- if and when they ever do get a person on the job.Avoid buying from these especially now house prices gone through the roof.. they downgraded the quality of the spec in the houses just after we moved in so you'll literally be paying more for less.. avoid
5/5
TrustpilotAngela has been amazing throughout we…
Angela has been amazing throughout we can’t wait for our house to be ready and move in
1/5
TrustpilotThis company will RUIN YOUR LIFE
A further review about Avant. We had our windows replaced but they’re more damaged than they were before, now Avant are refusing to rectify this. We had 1 tile of flooring replaced as we felt something was under it. It turned out there was a piece of flooring under it! What kind of person would lay vinyl floor tiles and leave something under it! Several areas across the whole of our downstairs has flooring tiles coming up where it hasn’t been laid properly. Our front door doesn’t work. It’s so stiff it’s become unusable and the lock doesn’t work. My husband got his level out on it and it’s completely wonkey. We’ve had it adjusted before but the door is, quite frankly, a piece of rubbish installed by cowboys. We literally cannot use our own front door and will need to pay ourselves to get this repaired as Avant are clearly incapable. This is honestly the worst company I’ve ever come across in my entire life. Avoid them like the plague.
5/5
TrustpilotLowry Park
Lowry Park, Sunderland.After an initial good start, my experiences with Avant have been very frustrating in terms of the long wait for acknowledgment of emails regarding snagging issues. They need to know these are worrying things to new customers and the silence only compounds an already anxious time. This situation was only helped by the support of Keith, assistant site manager, who has done his very best to help resolve some of these issues. This 5-star review is purely for him, he is an asset to Avant, always willing to help and offer advice and I will be genuinely sad to see him go when work on site is completed.
1/5
TrustpilotBad experience before we have even moved in!
Hi! we are due to move into our house and the roof has just been put on and for the SECOND time they have emailed us to say the kitchen we have chosen has been discontinued.The first time they changed the kitchen it was to a spec practically the same, BUT now the roof is on and they are changing it again to something COMPLETELY different in which they are arguing that is is like for like.They also said we can no longer have the black doors we wanted as they have also been discontinued. Before we exchanged contracts they did make us aware we will not have specked brick, a utility, grey window frames, the bathrooms have changed spec to bog standard. But we still loved the house due to the kitchen and the lay out of the house. Now we can’t even have the kitchen we liked and we are paying the same amount of money as people on our estate with ALL of the nice specs. And we now just have a bog standard house we could of purchased elsewhere somewhere more reasonable! ALSO they said we have 10 days to choose the colour or else they will choose for us so we had no choice but to choose a colour of a kitchen we don’t like!I have emailed the director of the area and also the sales manager and both did not want to help at all but to say to takeIt legal.
1/5
Trustpilot2 years in and still having problems
2 years in and still having problems. After having a door that doesn't always lock they replaced it today and left it in a state and they told us they will be back out mid November to fix which in Avant speak is 2024. This is a new build home and it is falling apart and the customer service team could not be less interested. Avoid
1/5
TrustpilotThis company RUIN LIVES
Please avoid buying a house with Avant. We deeply regret buying ours and sincerely wish we had read the reviews first. The house is unbelievably poor and shoddy. I cannot think of a single thing in our house that wasn’t damaged when we moved in or has since broken. We were told by somebody on site “if you could see what’s going on inside these houses and how they’re being built, you’d be horrified”. If that isn’t enough to put you off, let me tell you more. The first day we moved in there was a leak, the dishwasher was not connected, the washing machine didn’t work (which were told by the staff member sent to repair it “mine does that too, we just switch it off and on again”. We had it repaired ourselves and were advised that the waste pipe was never installed properly. Every single window and door, both internal and external, were damaged (some of which Avant are refusing to repair as apparently it’s cosmetic damage and could have been caused by us), the downstairs flooring isn’t flat and has bumps underneath it and is coming up again, the grouting in the bathroom was incomplete, the bathroom wall isn’t straight and the tiles go off at a curve, the kitchen cupboards were scratched and had chips in, the hob was scratched, the sink was scratched, there was no carbon monoxide alarm, the garden gates were broken, no microwave or fridge/freezer was installed, floor tiles scratched, the wrong amp fuse was put in the electrical box for the downstairs circuit and we could only use one socket at any one time (yet this was signed off by an ‘electrician’) and the decorating, if you can call it that, is by far the worst we’ve ever seen with chips down to metal, scratches and even different coloured paint for touch ups. Read the news as there are stories of peoples misery, check out Avant social media pages (not what they write but what the customers say where there are videos of fake weep vents, blocked air bricks, wonky walls) and speak to people who actually live in these houses because everybody we’ve spoken to since moving in has said the exact same thing. The list above is just from moving in day and we’ve had constant problems since. The door handles are falling off (we were told that no through bolt was fitted) and we’ve come across more damage in the bathroom and kitchen. The front and back doors have constant problems locking and closing. We’re still waiting for several issues to be resolved and some of have been refused by Avant. We’ve been under extreme stress since moving in. Don’t be fooled by the pretty show home or friendly sales team, that all disappears once you’ve signed on the dotted line. We also had a great sales experience, they got us hook line and sinker. You can complain all you want, you don’t get anywhere and the staff are extremely defensive and clearly have had no customer service training. To top it all off, we’ve been living on a building site 8 months in with at least another couple of months to go. There’s food rubbish, cigarette ends and site rubbish (plastic bags, insulation) everywhere you go and I’ve been blocked in my own parking space 3 times. The builders behave like no others I’ve ever come across. Our windows are constantly filthy, there’s rubble and brick dust outside our property and none of the community spaces have been finished. It’s an absolute state and the roads are dreadful. They constantly lie about when it will be finished. I’m fully expecting them to bugger off and leave it unfinished as this seems to be their specialty. If you’ve already reserved, get out now, even if it costs you as it will be better than living in one of these houses. This isn’t all new builds, we’ve bought two before and had excellent experiences, so try another builder if you’re specifically after a new house. Don’t make the same terrible mistake we did. The true definition of cowboy builders. It’s HELL. For all the unfortunate people who are in the same position as us, we need to make a stand and stop this company. Contact your local MP, the media, Citizens Advice, Trading Standards and even write to the Houses of Parliament to get this sorted. Make sure it’s all over social media. Visit sales offices and stop people making the same mistake as us. They have to be stopped from ruining more lives and be held accountable for everything they’ve already done and are getting away with.
1/5
TrustpilotIf I could give zero I would
The notorious Blantyre estate - If I could give zero I would. Buying an Avant home has been the worst and most traumatic experience of my life. My health has been destroyed by them. No snagging has been done 8 months in and they are refusing to do anything. All my neighbours have the same problems. I feel like my life has been ruined as I gave them all my money and they sold me the house from hell. I have too many problems to list. Once they have your money they are gone. I am stressed and traumatised from dealing with them. They don’t care about the lives they ruin with their houses from hell. I am broken, please do not buy from them. The estate has been left a wasteland - they are notorious for this. I am plagued by noise, drainage, mould and sewage problems. I can’t relax in my home as it has so many problems that I can’t afford to fix that they should be fixing and have refused to.
1/5
TrustpilotUpdate Greenhall Estate, Plot 216 Blantyre, Scotland
Update: Now 9 months in and now my new door has been fitted, dodgy kitchen vent and living room radiator working. Perhaps this winter i won't have to reach for the blankets. I still have serious snagging ongoing like the render which is still not fixed and the sounds eminating from the back bedrooms which i have been told they absolutely wont fix! We shall see Avant!!! From bi fold glass needing replaced due to scratch marks oh and not forgetting the kitchen window too. Other items include radiator caps missing, door stops missing the list goes on and on....cannot believe they waste money in not doing the job properly in the first place to then hiring persons to redo their dodgy workmanship, what kind of business plan is this?
5/5
TrustpilotAmazing customer service
Reserving an Avant home has been so easy and stress free. Laura is always so helpful and friendly and has made the experience so smooth so far.
1/5
TrustpilotCustomer Care not
As a single person nearly entering retirement I wanted a brand new home so I wouldn't have the stress and maintenance an older home would bring. After 5 months I experienced water coming through the extractor fan in the bathroom when it rained coming through the vent tile in the roof. Avant sent a guy totally baffled and inexperienced. I asked for a second opinion and this guy said it was because there was no bend in the vent. seemed plausible and he said he would report back that an order for a new vent would be made I have sent two emails to customer service team and have been ignored its virtually impossible to speak on the phone have more chance at getting a GP. I think their after care is non existent and certainly no customer care. I won't be recommending this company to anyone and soon as the time is right will sell the house.
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