A guide to living in Essex

Please tell us about the good and bad aspects of living in your local area:

Newhall we thought was going to be our dream come true, we purchased a £500k detached home to see our life out in peace and tranquility. What we didn't account for is the known thug that Simple Life Homes rented to opposite us at 2 Treadle Path that has made our life a living nightmare. Anti social behaviour, aggressive answers when being challenged when he parks his work van in a visitors bay but rams my fence to get as close as possible. He has put up 2 cam eras facing our house and he and his wife stare into our windows while chain smoking every 20 minutes. He has 2 allocated spaces and has taken over 2 car ports and secured them into enclosed garages where he runs his roofing business from outside our new home. This is breaking na number of the covenants we signed for. He also has 5 French bulldogs yet Simple Life Homes have a policy for only 2 dogs.

How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:

Very poorly, very slowly and annoyingly some of the bigger messy things could have been fixed before we moved in. They need to do much better.

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

if we knew we were going to be intimidated by a neighbour and let down by Vistry, SHW the Estate Managers and Simple Life Homes we would have stayed where we were.

Please tell us about the good and bad aspects of living in your local area:

• Perfect location close to city centre • Walking distance to the train station • Lovely to be by the canal

How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:

I haven’t experienced an issue yet but staff were quick to answer emails when I was going through the application process

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

I haven’t got a pet yet but it’s good to know that pets are allowed

Please tell us about the good and bad aspects of living in your local area:

The area is great with close links to Braintree town and other useful places. Train station not too far too.

How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:

The management Allsop are great and especially Ben and Conor

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

None, it’s all great and as expected from the ads we saw.

Please tell us about the good and bad aspects of living in your local area:

The development is in a great location, just outside the main town but not too far with plenty of easy shops etc to get too.

How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:

Very good so far. They have been attentive to all of our needs. Ben and Conor have been really really good all the way through the process!

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

I wish I would have known how good the location was!

Please tell us about the good and bad aspects of living in your local area:

Expensive overground parking with constantly broken gates. The area is noisy due to gas pipes works in the last 9 months.

How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:

They tried to ignore the issues first till we chased them a few times. Even when they promised that they will fix/send an engineer, they kept silent afterwards till you chase them again. Issues could have been fixed in days often get unresolved for months.

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

Awful property management and poor building quality