I’m delighted that a very much shortened signed letter, emailed to Taylor Wimpey was enough for our cheque to arrive super fast through the post Yesterday. I am honestly pleasantly surprised and grateful they didn’t try to twist any further.

Anyway, in the interest of balance, the letter we signed simply stated the EXACT settlement figure is, and shall remain confidential, and we accept a cheque of that value as full and final settlement of fuel bills up to and including 31st March 2010. Nothing else. No conclusion of “all matters” or agreeing to “all terms”, no ambiguity.

And it did the trick.

Brilliant.

Now, if only Wimpey and Wood Newton between them could finish fixing the house, we’d be happy campers at last, perhaps before our two-and-a-half year anniversary here at Oxley Park?!

As you can see from the letter, it’s ambiguous at best, down right sneaky and underhanded at worst. You can read it several ways I guess.

What I don’t like, and why I wont be signing this letter.

The part stating “the encashment of this cheque will conclude all matters”. I never agreed to this, and wont agree to this. This sounds very much like they want us to say that this reimbursement, promised months ago (originally two years ago) will literally be the final conclusion of ALL our problems and Wimpey owe us nothing more.

We have several outstanding issues, jobs incomplete, and have been put through more than two years on and off of hell here at Oxley Park. They expect us to say a cheque to reimburse us our bills, as previously agreed, is the end of everything, before they’ve even finished fixing our property? Seriously? No way.

The letter then goes to say this is “acceptance of all terms”. I’m not even sure what this means, and I won’t be signing to say that either!

Then the final paragraph says we understand this is considered on an “individual basis”. Clearly, they offered to pay our bills, not all the neighbours here at Oxley Woods.

Then the confidentiality clause. This, as stated, is pointless, and wont be agreed to either.

They are coming at us with this letter four months after emailing to say they agreed to pay us. Four months we have been talking with friends, family and neighbours about the money they agreed to pay and haven’t. Bit late to ask us not to tell anyone.

Then there’s the cheques we’ve already been sent, cashed, and discussed with others. This isn’t the first reimbursement for fuel bills Wimpey agreed to pay us. But it IS the first time they’ve tried to demand we keep quiet about it. Moving goal posts again?

But, don’t just take our word for it that this “standard” letter isn’t apparently as standard as it is claimed to be. Not only have we never had to sign one for previous payments, we know neighbours have not been asked to sign a confidentiality clause when reimbursed either. Some for substantially more than we are receiving on this occasion.

It’s also slightly suspicious that the customer service advisor we deal with claimed in an email to have not known about this letter needing signing before we received our cheque until a few days before we found out ourselves. A standard letter that a customer service advisor dealing with our case for a LONG time didn’t know about, really?

So Taylor Wimpey. As we’ve already asked, can we just have our money please? And what’s more, can you STOP trying to get us to sign forms containing a great deal of content we have never, and will never agree to, simply to have you keep to your word.

I’ve posted this up for a number of reasons. Not least because I feel it is in the interests of other Oxley Woods residents, as well as the wider public who may have bought, or may be considering buying a property from Taylor Wimpey, to know that they DO pay compensation, and sometimes, they try to stop you telling other people.

We’ve had a lot of rain here in Oxley Park lately, LOTS of rain. And, touch wood, it doesn’t look like any of it is finding its way into the property.

That’s right folks, two years in, and we have (apparently, let’s not jinx it) a water tight home!

Be good if Taylor Wimpey and Wood Newton between them would just finish off the last few bits, and Wimpey pay us the money they owe us, without adding ridiculous last minute clauses. We might finally start feeling settled and happy in our first real family home.

Hey, I know they keep twisting, but we can dream can’t we?

When the management at Taylor Wimpey get involved, or so the case would appear to be.

In the early days of our ongoing problems with leaks, damage, unfinished items, and all the rest, our site manager here at Oxley Woods made a generous and, I believe, genuine offer to cover our fuel bills, as I believe has been mentioned on here before.

Well, after being turfed out of our house in the build up to Christmas 2009, having all doors and windows replaced, and other (but not all) remedial work completed, it felt in the spring of 2010 that we were coming to an end of our horrible time here at Oxley Woods, and were close to being able to just enjoy our family home.

We felt that it was a good point to draw  a line under an apparently perpetual agreement and finish the reimbursements for domestic bills, much of which was consumed while were out of the building.

In April 2010 Taylor Wimpey agreed to this, and assured us we would receive our money.

Here we are, a few days shy of September 2010, and we still don’t have the money we were promised.

There’s been all the usual stalling tactics played out by Wimpey, until it seems they’ve revealed their hand, and their attitude towards honesty, openness, and customer care.

They want me to sign a confidentiality agreement BEFORE they will reimburse us with the money promised over four months ago!

The fact we’ve been waiting so long, so therefore have had months to complain to our friends, neighbours and families about the situation, appears to have passed them by.  Plus, this shows, once again, how they like to shift goalposts and delay doing just about anything for as long as possible.

Perhaps they’ve been pre-occupied trying to abandon the original Oxley Woods plans in favour of continuing with more conventional housing, and they’ve forgotten about us who are already here. those who’ve money they’ve already taken, those who they owe money.  I somehow doubt it, I think they just don’t like paying up, even when they’ve agreed to do so months previously.

Felt to me like a disgusting attempt to buy silence, and clearly, one not working.

It would appear the company behind these adverts would really like you to spare your old clothes, so they can turn them into a tidy profit.

The leaflets do not directly claim to be in aid of any charity, but they are designed and phrased to make you feel good about giving this company, previously noted for their misleading advertising style by the ASA your old clothes for them to profit from.

I don’t know how many homes in Oxley Park this leaflet is hitting, or how widespread in Milton Keynes, but if you do even a tiny bit of google research it appears that Rutex Ltd are running nothing short of a nasty scam, and it matches, almost word for word, previous scam mailers by a company named W&W Ltd, who were apparently dissolved last year.

Knowing this is not a charity, but seemingly a long running (so one would assume, profitable) scam, it makes you wonder what “Donations are sent to the third world countries to help clothe the poor” actually means. Do they SELL this stuff to the third world, or does it never get there at all?

In short, avoid this sort of scam leaflet, and if you really do have spare clothes, sell them and keep the money for yourselves. Even better, donate a few to a REAL charity, not some door-to-door collection con company.

Shameful.