Country Holiday House

This place is just amazing!!! I booked Old Hall since I had heard a lot of positive reviews about it, and I am glad that I did it. I and my friends had a good experience visiting there, & wishing to also have our New Year celebrations set here at this country holiday house.

Unfortunately, I can NOT recommend booking with this company due to my experience with them.
I booked one of their properties, Skyfall, (well before the pandemic even existed) for a Hen Do weekend and had paid the cost in full. We were unable to attend due to the government restrictions that were in place during the summer of 2020 preventing more than 6 people from different households meeting up outdoors and no more than two different households meeting up indoors, in addition to this some of our party live abroad and were unable to fly into the UK due to travel restrictions.
Despite being assured via e-mail that if we were unable to attend due to the pandemic, we would be able to re-book, stating they would work with us to find alternative dates; however, this did not happen. When we contacted them to find alternative dates, we were told we would have to pay the full cost again!!! We were refused a refund or the option to re-book dates as had been previously promised.
The correspondence we received from this company was extremely rude, unprofessional, and always very cagey and unreliable. We have been left completely out of pocket, upset and angry and now without the option of being able to have a Hen Do for our friend.
So disappointed that a company could function like this and reading the reviews it looks like they have a completely inconsistent approach with all their clients.
We are still seeking a solution to this and want it to be resolved.

Appalling company to rent from, zero customer service and stall to answer emails. Be very careful with the terms and conditions!! Take the time to read them thoroughly. No help through Covid, we lost all our money because they expected only 6 of a family of 19 to still go. Offered us new dates then back tracked.
Your reply is so wrong!! Go back through your emails and you clearly offered new dates then back tracked... terrible company as all your reviews say the same.
A review is a review, so if it’s bad you’ve obviously done something wrong!!! Try and learn by it!!

I rented Spring House to celebrate my wedding anniversary. Place was FAB. Loved the view. The servicing was great. Unlike other resorts, there was no disturbance. Also, the rooms were very well-maintained. Recommended!!

I strongly recommend you find a booking through another company. We booked a week away with friends and family just before the Christmas break (when rules were expected to be relaxed) we were contacted the day before the booking advising that our stay would have to be cancelled due to the new government guidance, we were promised a full refund of nearly 4K which nearly 2 months later we are still waiting for! Sarah alleges that the refund is the building owners responsibility and not hers and has now completely washed her hands of it. We are substantially out of pocket and are now left with no choice but to seek legal advice. Please avoid this company at all costs it is not worth the heartache, given the number of negative reviews I am surprised that they have any customers at all, I wish I had checked the reviews before booking.

Sarah, before you reply advising you don’t have a booking from me to try and discredit my review, the booking was made by my friend Matthew, I’m sure you know who he is given your recent email correspondence.

Thanks for the great weekend. Me and my friends had a lot of fun here at Canford Dairy. The place was so beautiful, from the swimming pool, dining, washroom, bedroom to everything, we loved spending our weekend over there. Would surely return soon, but this time we will book another cottage....Countryholidayhouse rocks.

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY EVER
😡😡😡😡
I wouldn’t even give them one star but I had to to write a review

Please do not use this company, read the other admin awful reviews, my family have just experience the same treatment as others

I had much the same experience as the recent reviews below.

I booked around March 2020 for March 2021. Once I had realised the restrictions were going to be in place a lot longer than expected, I made contact with Sarah to stress my concerns about the visit going ahead. Sarah's communication was almost non existent, I had to constantly chase for answers to my questions and was never given an answer to anything. Anyway, the event didn't go ahead as we were still in lockdown, I again chased Sarah to ask if I would receive my money back, she agreed I would and that the money would be in my account in 2 weeks. After 2 weeks I chased her as the money had not arrived, she responded saying she was low on funds and that I would have to be patient. I was shocked to say the least, she had made no attempt to even tell me she was low on funds and just expected me to wait with no information on when I would get this. Her emails were blunt and frankly quite rude. I have now received my money back which is great. I would've re booked the accommodation instead of asking for a refund had the customer service been even a little bit acceptable.

Would not recommend.

I'd like to know where you get you information from.... Reply from Countryholidayhouse
A day ago
"Two of the members of your group had already left a review. I am very sorry that the owner cancelled your booking. That was the end of the session not ours."

Seems to be your go-to excuse when people criticise you and the way you do business, you say 3 or 4 reviews are from the same group as to explain a poor average star rating... lack of communication, about payments, US having to contact you when we see the property WE booked was up for sale, advertising and demanding payment for a non existent hot tub and finally, my favourite, on another site, scoring yourself 5 stars while trying to defend yourselves against three 1 star reviews

We were lucky enough to be able to go ahead with our family holiday at Canford Dairy and i have to say that it provided an excellent choice.

There is ample space for a big and diverse group with plenty of options depending on where people wanted to hang out, the swimming pool was really great and enjoyed by all.

Finally, the garden and extended grounds are lovely.

I can totally recommend this house for large family / friends gatherings and will certainly look at returning in the future.

Roger

Avoid booking here! They take advantage of the pandemic and keep your money, will not refund if you can't go due to lockdown and the law! "it's not my problem" "take me to court then".
Another date was offered and after asking 15 people if they could all do the new dates we got back to her 12 hours later and accepted, they've said these new dates are now booked by someone else! No other dates until winter and AFTER the wedding. So what are our options now? Let you keep £1850?
It was good of you to offer a new date, but why offer it to then book it to someone else? You could have let us have 24hours to get back to you.
My poor friend does not need this stress after already postponing her wedding twice, putting having a family on hold, she now also has no hen doo. We can't go any where else as this lady won't give us our money back. And it's not like we can lose £1850? It's a lot of money!
As 1 household can go away, she expects the other 10 households to drop out, 1 person to stay in a house for 16 people, on her own? How is that reasonable?
There is no compassion at all. Absolutely disgusting customer service. I hope you will reconsider and give us a refund as it is not our fault there are lockdown rules. You however have business insurance to claim loss of earnings.

Unfortunately I also have nothing positive to say about this company. Due to Covid we were forced to rethink our booking as no more than 6 people could be in one house when we had booked for a very large group. Sophie was beyond unhelpful, never offered any solution and had a ‘not our problem attitude’. She eventually offered alternative dates which when we asked for, she then said she could no longer offer do because “we booked in a pandemic” ??? subsequently they have still taken our money and our family is devastated. Throughout the whole process, it’s been very clear the company was trying to exploit loopholes to keep our money rather than having any sense of decency. These times have been hard for everyone so everyone had saved up specially so we could spend quality time together, we have lost our money entirely and what’s worse is that this company doesn’t care at all. And yes there won’t be a booking in my name specifically as this was a family booking and you required only one person to be the lead booker.

Took advantage of the Covid pandemic to steal our deposit from us.

Terrible customer service. Demanded we pay for the booking in full despite the fact it would not go ahead.

I'm glad we didn't as they probably would have kept the full amount.

Update:
Their Reply - "Your booking could go ahead and we would be very happy to host you at the house if you had paid for it. You cannot honestly expect us to allow you to stay at a property that you have not paid for. Your booking is for the 16th of April after we are allowed to reopen."

My booking was for April 16th which could not go ahead as you well know we were booking for a stag and the government guidelines state you cannot mix until after 21st June (at least).

We didn't pay the full amount as my friend wanted to wait until the government had made plans for when our booking was due to take place! which you were well aware of and responded naively "we are confident restrictions will be lifted by then" which of course they haven't been. We were also concerned, rightly so, that you would not refund us the full amount and we would lose everyones money.

You then said you would still honour our booking as "a goodwill gesture" but we would have to pay more if the new booking was more expensive than our previous, which of course it is because all houses seem to be way more expensive, probably to make up the money lost over the last year?

You cannot honestly expect someone to hand over thousands of pounds of other peoples money to a company for an event that would probably not go ahead.

I also received very poor customer service from this company during a stay at one of their properties I had over 18 months ago and notice so many other people on here have had a similar experience, However, I notice there is a positive recent review from 24 March. But I'm puzzled as to how anyone could be renting the house at this time and even more so when the reviewer is based in the US

In August 2020 we booked the property Spring House with Countryholidayhouse for the first week of August 2021 for a 70th birthday and 50th wedding anniversary family celebration. Their acceptance of the booking said it was subject to Covid-19 restrictions in force at the time of our stay. On 24 February this year we received an email telling us our booking was cancelled. The reason given was that they had decided to limit their lettings to “one family only” (from which we deduce they meant all living at the same address, since ours was a family group) in case the expected release of Covid restrictions was delayed. The prospective date for release of all restrictions is 21st June: we replied to say that two-thirds of our group are already in a support “bubble” (for which the prospective date for lifting of restrictions is 12th April), but in any case we were willing to take all the financial risk ourselves and pay the full cost even if, in the absolute worst case scenario, Government regulations meant that only those living at a single address could attend. At that point they said they had already re-let the property, even though our reply was within 24 hours of their email telling us the booking was cancelled. When we made the booking the full extent of coronavirus implications was already known, without even the definite prospect of a vaccine, and their own terms and conditions contain a specific clause on coronavirus which doesn’t entitle them to do what they did. It seems they are quite ready to breach their own terms and conditions if it suits them. It also seems surprising that from giving us notice of cancellation they so quickly found a family all living at the same address to book this “sleeps 16” property. The only positive thing I can say is that they did promptly refund our deposit of almost £700, albeit having had the benefit of it in their bank account for 6 months.

Having just read a huge number of reviews about Countryholidayhouse.com and the owner/agent/manager Sarah, I am appalled and shocked to read that Sarah is still managing these properties and Webb site! I find it hard to believe that these continued very poor reviews are still occurring. Her mismanagement and unacceptable customer service were experienced by myself and my party in June 2017. We hired Templecombe Park for my husbands 70th birthday celebration. Despite numerous rules and regulations being stipulated by Sarah, particularly stressing we must make no contact with anyone but herself if we needed anything whilst there, she couldn’t be contacted when the electricity failed on our first mornings stay. Expecting caterers, providing a full meal for our party that lunch time and with the Aga not being hot enough I tried every means I could to contact Sarah for help, with no response! We were forced to try to make enquiries locally with neighbours and learnt that numerous other clients often complained of not being able to contact her. The day was saved by our fantastic caterers but the streets that was caused was difficult to deal with. When finally responded to by Sarah some 4-5 hrs later, with the excuse that she had to go to hospital fora suspected stroke yet she still managed to be extremely rude and unapologetic. She indicated that the problems were probably our cause and refused to accept that there was a problem with the Aga. She informed me that she managed numerous properties and never had any problems. This is very much not the truth on reading so many other customers opinions and problems, obviously continuing even now in 2020;— her various excuses continuing whilst never accepting any responsibility! How can this continue for so long?

I can't believe this woman is still in business quite frankly. We had to get a solicitor involved when S C-M refused to pay us what we were entitled to after my mother (who booked the holiday) had passed away. Our solicitor was flabbergasted when she read my email conversations with Sarah. DO NOT BOOK WITH THIS COMPANY!!!!!
Edit - Sarah you were told in 3 separate emails that I was an executor and you missed out the part of the story where you told me that I was entitled to a £300.00 refund when in fact it was £1700.00. You only paid up when you received the solicitors letter after months of emails going back and forth. You made an extremely stressful situation a whole lot worse. After reading the reviews on this website it seems that this is normal behavior from you. If anyone reading this is owed money from this person, go and get legal advice, she will do anything she can to get out of paying!

We could not have wished for a more fabulous stay with countryholidayhouse! In the up run to our stay in the beautiful Skyfall, Sarah could not have been more attentive to our needs when we made last minute changes to our booking. Upon arrival, the house was beautifully prepared for us being completely spotless, the hot tub preheated and the beds were of the standard of a 5* hotel! The house itself could not be more perfect for a big group to stay in and it never ever felt like a squeeze. Stunning facilities and a feeling of being completely remote despite being so near to the town centre of bath. Transport to and from the town centre was very easy and we never struggled to find Ubers that would roughly cost £7 to get to town. After an extensive search of both Bath and Bristol, this was bar far the best value property we could find. When we arrived we were expecting there to be a catch but we never found one. The house is just as amazing as it looks in the photos and the price is simply unbelievable. Could not recommend more highly as a weekend for a group of young professionals, we left London at 6 and were in the hot tub by 8 :) We celebrated two birthdays whilst there and we couldn't think of a better place to celebrate. Thanks so much for making this possible!

Stayed here for a birthday weekend away with a group of friends and the property alone made it an unforgettable experience. The overall atmosphere of the house was incredibly welcoming and comfortable, with every amenity we could ever need. I’m left scratching my head at how somewhere so amazing can come with such a great price?! This property is an absolute must to any one who wants to stay in the Bath/Bristol area!