Acorn Property Group Avis 

For anyone looking to buy a property with Acorn….DONT BOTHER!! Absolute car crash of a company…. Come and see the site they abandoned at Cottrell Gardens….they packed up and disappeared with the site in a mess, no roads, footpaths, street lights, and houses incomplete…Our house has many problems still to rectify but Acorn have been useless at addressing these….There is zero customer care…and many residents have issues far worse than ours, I’m talking damp issues, sewage pipes leaking and flooding the house, structural problems, electrical/fire safety issues….Also…be mindful that the way Acorn structure their business is set up to protect the ‘Mothership’ company, ie Acorn…for the Cottrell Gardens site they set up an SPV called Bonvilston Vale Ltd to develop the site… Why does a company do this? Essentially so that if the site goes bully up then the ‘Mothership’ company is protected… so be wary or even better avoid at all costs. Visit ‘Acorn Cowboy Builders’ Facebook page to post your horror stories and upload pictures of your house defects…Come and knock on any door at Cottrell Gardens and you will be guaranteed to chat to the owner with their own story…If you’re lucky enough to knock my door I will put the kettle on as you’ll be here a while….You have been warned!!!!!

Diana and Helyn provide friendly and professional assistance at the Printworks in Frome throughout the purchase process. They answer calls and emails promptly and sensibly. They help to make the whole process stress-free

I have invested twice now with this company over the last three years through their representative, James. They have always been prompt with their payments and very helpful with assisting me in making the investments as easy as possible. I would rank this company very highly for friendliness, efficiency and customer service.

We are very pleased with the quality of the build and finish inside. Staff have been very helpful and after care so far so good.

Amazing help from Helyn & Diana at the marketing office, they made our experience both smooth and pleasurable! Was as stress-free as possible and me and my partner were very pleased with the experience buying our property.

Don't invest or buy from them. It's a trap for investors.

The vast majority of the properties at Cottrell Gardens Phase 1 have been built for the last 18 month / 2 years and yet Acorn are STILL doing groundwork’s that should have been completed before selling properties. Underground drains were installed incorrectly and many properties were not linked up to the waste pipes, ours included which meant after one week we had disgusting waste entering the property. To be fair, as awful as it was, it was resolved quickly however, for the last 2 years they have repeatedly dug up roads, pavements, gardens etc to do yet more drains works. Many of the areas they have dug up they have done so multiple times so it’s clear they can’t get things right first time to minimise disruption. There seems to be no end to this depressing Groundhog Day cycle. As soon as it looks like there might be some progress, another large area is dug up and it all comes with delightful side effects:

- Constant heavy construction traffic using residential streets meaning unbearable noise within the property each and every weekday. Makes working almost impossible and is now embarrassing how much I have to apologise on conference calls (the phrase that I keep getting is “wow, haven’t they finished yet?!”). Not only that but they often drive far too fast so with children and pets here, it is an extremely dangerous situation.
- We were assured by the sales team that the residential roads would not be used for construction traffic because an alternative route outside of the development had been sought to the area used to store materials and dump the mountains (think Switzerland) of earth and junk. Not only is this not the case but Acorn management seem to have zero interest in finding alternatives or reaching a compromise. Once you’ve purchased a property, it appears you’re nothing more than a hindrance and in their way.
- We and other residents are unable to use our gardens or open windows because of dust and noise which in the warm weather, is very uncomfortable.
- Despite site parking being provided, the contractors are allowed to park vans and trucks on the pavements throughout the residential streets, blocking roads & peoples driveways and causing damage to the kerbs.
- This damage to kerbs now means entire pavements need to be ripped up and replaced causing yet more disruption for months to come.
- They do send a street cleaner occasionally which quite hilariously, is literally followed by construction vehicles right behind it so chocolate teapots etc.

If they continue to use the residential streets for Phase 2, we will have to sell at a loss, take the hit and move on. Or join in with the threats from other residents and block the roads. But that fun is for another day - Phase 1’s disaster epic continues for the foreseeable…

Hi Please let me have the contact no for your aftercare team for The Links or the name of someone to contact - it has been described as a revolving door. I'm getting no response to emails regarding our defective windows. Thanks

Very happy with my purchase. The flat is in prime location with all snagging fixed quickly and the purchase process was smooth with the help of Harry, Tom and the team.

I have worked with Acorn Property Group for a number of years now and found them to be a professional, courteous and reliable company. In particular Kyla Campbell is very responsive and is a pleasure to deal with. I cannot recommend Acorn and Kyla highly enough

Kyla from Acorn Property Group was very attentive and responsive to various matters involving our property. She is a reliable person who took the time to show up and look at matters first hand and make things happen quickly. We appreciated to have such a collaboration throughout the process of buying but also selling out property.

Can’t speak to anyone , left messages , emailed and the just send you the same form … rubbish

Unfortunately, my experience with Acorn Property Group has been a nightmare.

1. We’ve had various door and main entrance defects more than 4 times since completion in 2021. Doors not closing, doors not opening (when you try to get home from work at 9 pm and your neighbours have to let you in manually from inside the building).
2. Some flats don’t have any functioning heating at all and had to buy electric heaters.
3. Appointed managing agent (MDB) doesn’t respond to emails for months and collects charges in breach of Ground Rent Act.
4. Some flats have leaks that go unresolved and the whole building seems to have a huge leak somewhere.
5. To top it all off, when all communal boilers break down in January 2023 and don’t work for 3 weeks, the developer is first asking residents to pay for fixing them saying they don’t have money to fix them otherwise. Then after residents ask for the documented proof for the reason of such a huge breakdown, the developer suddenly assumes the charges and starts fixing the boilers. However, this continues for almost 2 months since the initial break. Residents not clear what exactly is being done and whether this situation will repeat again. No hot water for 1.5 months. Less than 2 years into living in the building all communal boiler break 🤷🏻‍♀️

Very distressing experience, sadly. I hoped they would improve and didn’t post a review earlier. I would advise anyone to avoid this company.

Don’t trust those replies that say they’ll get in touch. 3 weeks later we are all still without heating and hot water. We get some bonus though. Doors and gates were broken again that residents had to release the fire safety switch and then left them open and vulnerable for 1 week before they were once again “fixed”. Still absolutely no real sincere apology but we get a lot of excuses and defensive replies from them for denying us basic necessities like hot water and heating for almost one month, feels like a spit on the face considering the horror show they’ve put us through so far.

Felt welcomed from the very start! Helyn and Diana have been knowledgable and supportive. I am so glad to have had the two of them throughout the journey/process.10/10!

My experience with Acorn was a nightmare.

We were fortunate enough to not buy an apartment from them, but were instead the first tenants in one of their properties. The list of problems was endless, major leaks in the whole property remaining unaddressed for several months, heating and hot water not working for months for many flats, persistent access control issues resulting homeless people residing in the common areas, etc.

Hoping for acton care? Forget about it - the lack of care is shocking. We had to send several hundred emails to simply install a self-closer in the communal door (to partially address severe access control issues) that started malfunctioning after a mere few days. I completely agree reviewers saying that "their tactic is drag everything on until people give up chasing them, so they can get away with not doing anything".

Their subcontractors are even worse, and the managing agent they hand picked for the property is non-existent.

Simply avoid them, I can only feel sympathetic for our neighbours that actually bought from them.

Their After care team is utterly incompetent. Never been so angry.

I've lived in the house for over a year and am still waiting for them to fix basic snags like the fact that the front door keys don't work.

Over a year after they promised to fix things, they start claiming it's not their problem.

They made me log everything on a 3rd party portal (Clixifix) and then started closing all the tickets even though they hadn't fixed them. Now they don't have any idea what tickets they haven't dealt with, so I have to go through everything again.

They make it more difficult because they know people don't have the time for all this admin so we'll give up eventually.

As another reviewer said, it's clear that their tactic is drag everything on until people give up chasing them, so they can get away with not doing anything.

EDIT 02/06/2023: They left a reply to this review saying they'd get in touch with me to sort stuff out. They got in touch with me and promised to sort stuff out and never did.

We recently got the keys to our new 2 bedroom property on The Old Printworks site in Frome. From start to finish I can honesty say that Helyn & Diana have kept us informed of what was happening and when. We had a couple of issues nearing completion but these were dealt with very swiftly and put right immediately.

We are so pleased with the house and the way it has been built and the finish is excellent. The service from all the staff has been amazing.

Today marks another bizarre day at Cottrell Gardens as the main builders have packed their bags and left as Acorn have fallen out with them and not paying them. This is the 2nd time this has happened so impressively, Acorn have now fallen out with 2 main builders, several sub-contractors and pretty much everybody who’s bought a house here. I wonder if Acorn will ever realise that they’re the lowest common denominator with all these disputes?
We bought over a year ago and had one huge problem that was resolved quickly so we thought they’d be ok. They also fixed some initial snags after a long while but at least they were done. However, Acorn no longer respond to any residents at all and several of us have quite major problems that look like are never going to get resolved without legal action.
My advice, don’t buy at Cottrell Gardens until Acorn change the management team for this site as there’s no way things can improve with the current personnel.
I should mention however, the sales team are fantastic but unfortunately are let down by the MD and site-manager.

We bought a house from Acorn Blue a few years ago in Constantine Bay and were extremely happy with the service we got especially from Sean Butcher. After a few small problems with some minor snagging issues we have had a couple of trouble free years there. We loved the area so much that when the plans for the new houses came out we were lucky enough to secure one, again with Seans help. The build took longer than expected because of covid but we are now so please to have got the keys last week and are so happy with the house. Wayne was also really obliging, and kept in touch throughout the build, he was also extremely helpful when we made changes and quickly delt with any build issues. We look forward to many holidays down in Cornwall thanks to Acorn Blue and their team.