A New Home And Much More Room For Chatham Family

A family of five have had their lives changed after swapping their old home in Chatham for a much bigger place which better suits their needs.

The Scott family – mum Katrina, dad Lucian, and children Francesca, 15, Madalyn, 13, and Kyle, five – used Bellway’s Part Exchange scheme to upsize from their old three-bedroom end terrace to a new four-bedroom house at Crown Fields, off Street End Road in the town.

The move means they now have a utility room, a south-facing garden, parking for two cars and enough rooms for everyone to have their own space.

Katrina said: “We have seen a 180-degree turn. We are much happier individually, as well as a family. The girls are getting on better and Kyle said that he loves the new house.”

The security of using Part Exchange proved a great benefit to the family, after their original moving date in December was put back due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Under the scheme, Bellway makes an offer for the customer’s existing home based on an independent valuation and they can stay there until their new home is ready – which in the case of the Scotts was in May this year. There are also no estate agent fees to pay.

Katrina said: “We found out about Part Exchange when searching the development on the website and we were given a full breakdown of how it worked on our visit by Sam in the sales team. Using the scheme was a big benefit to us and kept everything in our control.

“The main reason we wanted to use the scheme was due to the level of protection we would get. We didn’t want to have to move out until we knew the new property was built and ready to move in. If we had not used the scheme, we would not have had anywhere to live and that would have meant privately renting and moving at least twice.”

Katrina, 44, who runs her own cake baking business, and Lucian 40, a scaffolder, chose the Braid house type by comparing the choice of different four-bedroom designs available at Crown Fields.

‘Braid’ house type

Katrina said: “When we first went to the development, we picked up a selection of leaflets on all four-bedroom houses at the development. To make it easier for us, we compared them via a range of charts to see which one would be more practical for us and we settled on the ‘Braid’ as it was the only house type to have a utility room, which proved to be so helpful in our previous home.

“The parking options at our home and the location were the big factors for us selecting this house. We wanted to be closer to my parents and live in a house that had easy access to the car. At our old house, it had got to the stage where parking was so competitive that we couldn’t really go out on weekends as no-one wanted to leave their house.”

The move to Crown Fields has been a symbol of the family’s fresh start in the town and the fact they’ve bought a brand new, low-maintenance home means they have more time to spend enjoying it.

Katrina said: “We sat down together and went through what actually needed doing with old our home, we concluded that we didn’t have the time to get everything done. With Lucian working long hours and for me to run my business and look after the kids, it was difficult to spend time with them and do what we wanted.

“It is a fresh and new space and it has such a good finish. My mum has already claimed the kitchen if we ever decide to get rid of it! We gave ourselves two weeks to get what we wanted as we bought everything brand new, and everyone was laughing at us saying ‘it normally takes people months to do that much’.”

“It’s been lovely when people come over and we can show them how it looks – and when we go out for the day, it still feels surreal when we come back into the house and realise it is ours. The whole move has changed our life.”

Crown Fields is a development of one-, two-, three- and four-bedroom properties, with two-, three- and four-bedroom houses currently for sale, priced from £284,995. Find out more at www.bellway.co.uk.

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