Appalling and practically criminal. We reserved a house off plan virtually three years ago on the Longford Park development in North Oxfordshire and duly paid our deposit. The lead time to the build completion was 12 months. During that time we experienced valuation and mortgage issues with the property, but despite this we continued to pursue the purchase and went so far to order and pay for extras / upgrades. Little did we know, that when we paid for the additional features our reserved property had already been sold to someone else, which is contrary to applicable regulations. We understand the same sales-person who took the payment also sold the property several weeks earlier. To me this is fraud - taking money under false pretences. They subsequently pulled the sale from under us, without consultation of notification, we found out via a third party. Incredible!! The same sales representative or malefactor as I see it, was extremely rude when we tried to discuss / understand the situation and all meeting requests fell on deaf ears. However, the worst thing is despite breaking the rules, Bovis have refused to reimburse the deposit or the moneys paid for the extras, despite the numerous request over the years. In fact we have had no response to our recent correspondence. We were forced to start our house search and negotiation with another developer again, a year after we first put down our deposit with Bovis. The impact was we have lost the money we directly paid and we have lost money due to the market price increase over the period. Ergo, this translates to a loss of in the region of £9000.00 I have reported this to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau, although whether they take action remains to be seen. I will purse Bovis through the small claims court as I now feel I have no other options available. For your information. The Longford Park site has had numerous instances of high profile complaints and I am familiar with copious anecdotal instances from neighbours and traders of extremely poor quality builds. In fact the people who purchased the house we reserved, where coerced into moving in without hot water to allow the site to meet its end of year targets. I fully appreciate Bovis often offer what appear to be good sales deals, but the reality is, the savings you seem to make are often lost through poor quality control and inconvenience due to significant remediation, another neighbour needed their whole house re-rendered. Or like us, they will simply take your money and pull the rug from under you. The bottom line is to beware and seriously consider your options before dealing with this company which appears to me more like the front for an organised criminal agency that a reputable developer.