St Helens Head Office

Michael Perfect

19 Aug, 2018

AWFUL - do not use! Total waste of money - not thorough or professional. We bought our first house last year and paid Cosey Homes to do a FULL structural survey (not just a Homebuyers or basic one). Cosey Homes wasn't the cheapest quote we got, but we went with them because they were supposed to have a good reputation. Well, that was definitely a mistake! They missed all kinds of problems - we've complained and they have just fobbed us off with a really unprofessional reply. Absolutely appalling. For example, the surveyor's report said that damp was found in just one wall. It recommended a DPC in just that one wall and explicitly said that no re-plastering was necessary. No other damp was mentioned. Unfortunately, after moving in we quickly realised that the damp was a much, much bigger problem than they said. Every company we brought in to give us a quote for the work found damp right through the downstairs, as well as in one bedroom upstairs. We've had to get an external DPC right through the house, at considerable expense, and we also had to get an internal DPC done in the worst areas (so even though the report explicitly said that no re-plastering would be required, it was). I really don't know how they missed this - there's a small cupboard with a gas meter inside that is visibly damp ALL the time (you can smell it, too) - the surveyor definitely went in this cupboard because he took a photo of it. Clearly, he just wasn't doing his job properly. We've also discovered that our mortar at the front of the house is basically dust - it's letting the rain in, and bricks can be removed really easily. Bricks can literally be taken out of the corner of our house with one tap of a hammer and then your fingers. Unbelievable. We complained to Cosey Homes and they sent the head of the company over to look at the problems. We've now had a written reply from them. Firstly, this reply is very unprofessional. Some of it is simply unintelligible (e.g. the three-word sentence "The removed brick." - what am I supposed to make of that!?). Some of it is even written all in capitals as if they're shouting at me or something. How rude. Moreover, incredibly, they say that their original report was absolutely fine - the head of this company doesn't think it's a problem that our mortar is so bad at the front of our house that bricks can be removed by hand - he says the pointing on this wall is "perfectly adequate" (even though you can pull bricks out by hand - are you serious!?). He also doesn't think it's a problem that they totally failed to detect the extent of the damp problems. They've refused to give us any compensation or even refund the money that we paid them. In addition to all of the above, their surveyor also made other mistakes in his report - for example, he labelled a vent as loft ventilation when it's clearly the outlet for the bathroom extractor fan, and he gave a score of 1 (i.e. no problems) to two UPVC outhouses when one of them has a broken door that won't close properly. He didn't even notice holes in the side of the house that was visible from ground level. Clearly, he simply didn't bother to look at everything that he was supposed to. Most significantly, though, he missed the serious, structural issues mentioned above, and this has ended up costing us a lot of money. I really don't know why we wasted our money paying Cosey Homes to do a full structural survey - I could have done a better job myself. Please don't waste your money on this firm. They are only interested in taking your money, and once they have it they don't bother doing a proper job. They are very, very sloppy, and when you complain they just fob you off. Sloppy, unprofessional, and a total waste of money. DO NOT USE COSEY HOMES!