Drew Smith Ltd

Myself and my wife purchased our first-ever property together in July 2022 and are now in a three-bedroomed, Drew Smith property which we purchased through Abri homes. Whilst the houses are built to a high standard, our experience with Drew Smith has been far from good and affected our wellbeing, causing stress, anxiety and with the fear of a huge financial cost that should not fall on us. For some context: We were keen to point out before exchanging contracts that we were concerned and unhappy about the levels in our garden, which have a slope in almost every direction of the garden. We feared we would run into problems of drainage later down the line. We were assured that the slopes 'follow the contour of the land' and that we wouldn't have problems with drainage (p.s: despite our neighbours either side having flat gardens, our seems to be the only one with a huge slope). Cut to just several months later, our garden has turned into an absolute mess where poor drainage (due to poor levels, poor quality top-soil, turf and no sufficient drainage) has led our garden to a boggy site that is unfit for purpose and is not usable. When we stand on the grass, water seeps upwards causing pooling and we have had regular puddles of water where it has not drained away. Please see some photos attached. Drew Smith 'landscapers' came to our property to assess and noted that we had a drainage problem and that they would need to re-level some of the garden and replace the grass. Just three days later, Drew Smith advised they wouldn't carry out any works as it 'our fault' and made a claim that we had cut the grass when it was wet, causing our whole garden to turn into this mess. Firstly, this claim is untrue and secondly, cutting your grass when wet does not cause this issue. We took it upon ourselves to have several landscapers and a gardener from our area assess our garden, and they all agreed it was unacceptable and that the problem was due to poor drainage and poor materials. Whilst we have purchased through Abri and we have raised our concerns with them who are doing their best efforts to liaise with Drew Smith. DS are trying everything to back out of any responsibility and have even stated they had been round doing works on the garden (which has never happened). I have even offered a compromise of paying some money towards it, but the cost to have our garden levelled and with some proper drainage would cost us a whopping 6,000 - money we should not have to spend for a brand new property which comes with a defects period and not money that we have to spend. We are willing to get someone to do the work for us but are not willing to paying the costs for poor work drainage and all new turf. This has caused so much stress and anxiety and we are disappointed we can't share our garden with friends and family for visits as it just looks an absolute mess. p.s: The air bricks are also too low. I look forward to a resolution from Drew Smith and for some co-operation to get this rectified.
Apr 25th, 2023

Positive: Quality Service: Home building
Mar 15th, 2023

Never been and I won't be
Dec 31st, 2022

Apr 24th, 2022

May 12th, 2021