National Homebuyers Reviews

Do not trust these people!!! They pulled out 3 weeks before we were due to complete after I had already spent thousands on legal fees, deposits and the removal company. I had already sold half my furniture and my whole house was packed away into boxes ready for the move. My wife was due to give birth a week after the move and we are now left in a home that is in no condition to bring a new life into the world. After spending the last few months packing up our home and selling our possessions, we now have to unpack everything again and try and make our current home liveable in very short amount of time, which is not ideal when you are 8 months pregnant. Having initially offering us £375,000 for our home, it was not long before they reduced it to £365,000, we accepted their offer by signing their agreement (which means nothing) and then not long after that; they reduced it again down to £340,000. Already feeling like we were being taken advantage off, we accepted the offer as we desperate to secure a home before the birth of our new child. We had to remove our home off of the housing market as part of their terms & conditions; 4 months of wasted time in which our home may have sold legitimately, just for them to cancel at the last moment. Their final offer was then cut down to £260,000, £80,000 below the previous offer and £115,000 below their initial offer which was initially based on an 85% of the market value. The bad reviews on here are completely true. Their solicitors will stall and drag their feet at the last minute until you are so deeply invested that you have no choice but take another price reduction when they will inevitably give it to you. Unfortunately it was too low for us at that point and we had lost our chances of our dream home, most of our furniture and £6500 of our own money going through the normal proceedings for buying a house. These people have no regard for your well being, they only take advantage of people in desperate situations and wear you down as much as they possibly can for their own personal gain. Do not fall into the same trap that I did.

I am writing this review to provide transparency for those looking to invest time and money working with this unethical company. My elderly in laws were looking to move closer to myself and my husband due to my mother in laws increasingly frail condition with Lupus. Their house had been on the market a while and they were approached by National Homebuyers with an exciting proposition via post, although hesitant at first this may be a scam their desperation to move (as with other reviewers) motivated them to peruse this opportunity. After a valuation and survey on the house (conducted by National Homebuyers themselves) they were given a figure of much lower than market value as expected. They understood their offer would sit lower than the initial valuation by the Estate Agents on the open market, but felt this opportunity would be offset due to the expedited process, upfront agreement of price and most importantly the trust that they would not retract their offer last minute allowing them to avoid an unpredictable chain buyer. Just as suggested by the National Homebuyers in some of the responses I have seen to reviews, this is the nature of their business model so you have to appreciate that going forward. So at this point the agreement felt mutually beneficial. Until this point the company seemed legitimate and our initial concerns were alleviated. With this in mind they commenced the purchase of a house near to us within a much smaller budget. During this time, whilst maintaining communication with the National Homebuyers, they spent money on lawyers and were to believe that all had been agreed to continue. The closer to the date of completion the slower the communication became. Once avoidance tactics became apparent my in laws finally got through to a representative to be provided with a further reduction of £30k, this came as a shock as the survey had already been conducted and offer accepted. With a shortfall of £60k on the initial market price they could not afford to move at all. Given the assurances by National Homebuyers initially they had proceeded to donate a large proportion of their furniture (just as a previous reviewer has mentioned) and have very little left. They are also financially damaged by legal fees and are struggling to finance their next attempt at moving on a retirement salary. Upon reading further reviews this seems to be a pricing strategy often utilised by the National Homebuyers which is really upsetting given the ‘family atmosphere’ they promote on their website. All of the above is what brings me here today. Suspicious of their conduct and wanting to forewarn anyone else from trusting this company with their time, money and hopes. When asked if there would be any support for this expenditure the very candid response was ‘good luck with that’. I am also disappointed to see the indignant attitude within the replies provided to similar distraught reviews. I think the blatant disregard for the impact they are having on people’s lives speaks volumes about their conduct. Upon further inspection of their website it appears unclear if they are part of any regulating bodies such as redness schemes (e.g. The National Association of Property Buyers (NAPB)) etc. which is also suspicious. Although they are not specifically regulated these bodies are advertised on some of their competitors sites through voluntary registration, so I suggest you look for one of their more ethical market operators instead. I wonder if the change in company secretary recently will have any impact, I guess time will tell. Response to reply: I had written a response to explain/challenge each point below but the character limit will not allow. The Given the nature of NHB reply in the first instance and the contrast in tone in the updated one below I suspect you will still feel the injustice is against NHB so we will never agree and therefore I shall not be commenting further online. Our thanks to TrustPilot for concluding in my favour when you tried to remove our initial review for defamation on their site.