Faults and repairs mean they are frequently without power and their garden is too dangerous to enter after being dug up twice because of drainage problems.

We made a few visits to the site as the development (1st phase) went up and were shown plans outlining street furniture, types of soft landscaping etc and all was well. We ended our rental agreement as we didn't need another six month lease and moved everything we owned into garages amongst friends and family.

Steve Soulsby, the owner of a Persimmon house of horrors, was so shocked by the experience of buying a new build that he has set up a website to share his experiences with prospective buyers.

It got off to a bad start when they held back the keys for 4 hours after receiving our funds at 1 o'clock. We didn't receive keys till 5.30 having booked a van and given notice on our rented property at the time and booked holiday from work.

Residents on a Lancashire estate have slammed house builders Redrow, saying roof tiles have fallen off homes they built for the third time in two years.

Barratt have not even completed the first house on the estate the are working on at Newbiggin by the Sea in Northumberland but already have the residents of the only access road up in arms.

We bought our house new from Persimmon in July 2000. Since then we have had problems with internal and external cracking which for four years Persimmon refused to take seriously or investigate the root cause.

Builders Bellway Homes North East jumped into action when I asked for an explanation about Andrew Hutchinson's complaint.

In summer 2005 I moved into my present flat. It is a so called new build, built by a well-known company, that, for arguments sake, we shall call Barratt. I am neither advising people to stay away from such properties, nor advocating them, but here is one of the problems I've had with this developer.