dont buy from howdens

I am sure this must be an iscolated incident ,I have dealt with them loads of times & found them excellent ,sorry to hear you have been treated this way,hope it works out

mark.

Has your problem with Howdens been sorted now?

I second this. I;'ve just spent ~£9k on a Howdens kitchen, and the kitchen designer got the measurements wrong on a 6m run by 140mm. This was just the first in a litany of problems; he (designer) changed appliances without telling us, placed appliances in positions where they couldn't go - the list goes on an on. When it was delivered many of the units were wrong, losing us time on the build and leading to higher costs because the kitchen fitter had turned up on site ands couldn't work on things.

Their customer service has been appalling; they've taken no responsibility and are giving us no compensation.

Never, ever, ever buy anything from them.

Need a full information to go ahead...please suggest what to do in this conditions..

New member here.

We are in an ongoing fight with Howdens, and getting nowhere.

We paid out a considerable sum on a new kitchen 3 years ago and now doors are delaminating and the dishwasher door is completely peeling off inside.

Howdens have said that we only have 1 years guarantee with them for facing doors, which is totally untrue as we have the brochure saying we had a 5 year no quibble guarantee!
Unfortunately the design we have is now currently been axed and there are no spares, according to them. They are denying any responsibility, although obviously the doors are not fit for purpose. Who buys a kitchen on a years guarantee anyway? We certainly didn't, and I expect a kitchen to last longer than 3 years.
They are now telling us after months of wrangling, that they do not deal with direct to customer? What? They have been talking to us for months and now decide not to communicate further? They say it's simple water-ingress, which simply isn't the case, as doors away from the sink are affected.

I'm furious to say the least - I expected much better service from a UK company. They are happy to take your money, but god help you if you need assistance from any of their products!

Any idea what my next step should be? We will not let this matter lie, as we now have a kitchen which we can't afford to replace, and the doors will inevitably get worse.

The Small Claims Court, the brochure stating a five year guarantee is all you need.

I think they have claimed before that they don't deal with the general public but if that is the case, they should ensure you are in business before they sell to you, which they don't.

You can find out more from the Small Claims Court here

https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/web/mcol/welcome

I had a Howdens kitchen installed. There was a problem with the worktop which I contacted them about. Howdens sent a rep out to look at it, who agreed it was a fault. I heard nothing back so followed it up myself. Their response was to go back to the builder who installed it. The builder had since gone out of business - I told them this. They didn't care, and weren't willing to accept any responsibility. The problem wasn't in the fitting, it was a fault in the actual worktop! Beware of Howdens appalling customer service.

Lets just say I have a vast amount of knowledge on exactly how Howdens operates. their mantra is and always has been 'to make money for the builder.' Hence you will see that they purport to be a Trade Only organization that will quite happily discuss kitchens with the public and do maybe some really good designs. However all 7000 staff have it drilled into them from Matthew Ingle (the Chief Executive) downwards on a monthly basis through his board meetings with all 600+ managers, to create a mark-up for their builder/joiner customer.... typically anywhere between 500 and 1500 pounds on top of the cost to the builder. Howdens will help the builder try win the business by providing 2 estimates for their customer... obviously the higher one with the builders' mark up will be the one which goes to the end user. Once the end user is happy to proceed after maybe a handful of amendments, they are invited into the depot to pay for the kitchen outright. People are usually more than happy to do this as they know the money has been lodged with the kitchen manufacturer for their dream kitchen. They may even get given a receipt to Prove they've paid. However just before the kitchen will be sold through the Joe Bloggs Builders account.. lots more discount is then applied to the estimate/sales order, which brings the value of the kitchen down to the real cost of it to the builder. This will be why your builder will be very reluctant for you to see his invoice for the kitchen. Then after delivery and maybe installation, the builder will front up to his depot with his bank card in hand, whereupon the manager or assistant manager uses their own personal login to do what is known as a 'Minus Account Payment' of the mark-up back onto the builders' personal credit or debit card of whatever the agreed mark-up was. So as well as the builder/joiner charging you an installation fee, he also gets a massive whack back from Howdens. And do you think for one minute either the builder or Howdens is going to say anything to HMRC about this little windfall courtesy of Mrs Unsuspecting customer? I think not. Do the Maths... 440,000 kitchens sold last year.. each with a possible 5-1500 quid mark up, that's a whole loada tax evasion I think is being facilitated!!!! And don't get me talking of their Great October Sale. Matthew Ingle wants upwards of 44% gross profit right across the whole network of depots. So your SALE KITCHEN will have had the initial price so over-inflated that it genuinely does look like a great saving to be had.... wrong. The deal you get on their SALE is no better honestly than if you'd purchased at any other point in the year. Howdens is just one massively greedy cash rich company that needs to feel some heat from angry customers. I know that I've been over-charged by them in the past.... but that before I gained true knowledge Matthew is so keen on creating a squeaky clean image of Howdens to pursue his personal goal of moving from a FTSE 250 company listing to a top FTSE100 listing. Too late pal. Over £1.1Billion in sales last year with 2020 vision of £2Billion..... do you want to support a crooked sounding company to achieve its goal by duping unsuspecting customers into parting with money that may or more than likely not get declared to the taxman?

Re: Jonathan Walker Cowboy Builder Woodhouse (Lund) Ltd

[onathan P Walker COWBOY BUILDER
Jonathan P Walker COWBOY BUILDER

This person is the worst, he traded as REEF Homes and built unsafe houses, the last one took 140,000 to put right, this is borne out by the litigation, the out of court settlement and the planning officer of Beverley in East Yorkshire.
He has since changed his name to WOODHOUSE (Lund) Ltd and building the same unsafe properties as he did before. He will be caught again but he just changes his company and moves on. He has connections in the Council as he was a council Leader and his family take turns to hold that position (his uncle is now in that position) his family are the biggest landowners and his wife has the Nursery also in the village, also the Beverley council keep giving him planning permission, so something is wrong there as well.
Please can you help as someone will get hurt of even killed if he is not stopped, I have tried but the village council under the family control override it.