For homeowners, instructing works to improve their property can be a worrying time, and the costs involved can be significant.  Unfortunately, part of our workload at CPC Limited is helping clients pick up the pieces when projects have gone badly wrong.

Changes to How we Procure Repairs and Construction Works

In a post-Covid world we have become used to fast delivery as exemplified by Amazon and other online operators.  This has reduced our capacity for patience, and many of us seek instant results and have little time for delays.

Using our smartphones we can order anything from fast food to a car, or a foreign holiday.  This is recognised by most traders and many building contractors now have an online presence.  This is their shop window and can be a main source of trade for them.

Increased demand for websites has been met by many skilled IT professionals, increasingly assisted by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms like Chat GBT.  The result can be highly professional looking websites with inaccurate, exaggerated and misleading content.

Some sites have logos from trade and safety organisations which the company does not belong to, and some companies add up the number of years that personnel have been working, making comments like ‘the company has over forty-years experience in the trade’.  In reality they may have only been in business for a couple of years, but measures like these are intended to add false credibility and inspire customer confidence which in reality may not be deserved.

So How can Customers who are going it alone Protect Themselves?

Obviously, we would not expect everyone to appoint a Chartered Building Surveyor or other professional to arrange and supervise building works, and for those who choose not to, we would recommend the following.

• • Wherever possible use contractors who have worked for family members or friends who are delighted with their work.

 

• • Make sure that the work the contractor has done for the other person is of the same type and scale as you are looking for. For example, a person being delighted with a contractor hanging a few doors does not mean the same contractor will be a good choice for building your new sun room extension.

 

• • If companies claim to be members of trade associations such as NFRC, check online that this is the case.

 

• • Make sure you have a written description of works that is clear and detailed and which avoids uncertainty about the extent of the works

 

• • Agree payment terms before instructing the Contractor. Stage-payments linked to specific progress milestones offer greater security.  When agreeing these, avoiding leaving too little money in the pot at the later stages of the works improves your leverage and your chances of a satisfactory outcome.

 

• • Try to avoid variations to the works since these can be more expensive while works are in progress that they would have been if they were included when the job was being priced.

 

• • And finally, bringing us to the main point of this blog, try to be patient. Good contractors are always busy and particularly with smaller companies you may need to wait for many months before a contractor can fit you into their work schedule.  Contractors available at very short notice are either not busy for a reason, i.e., because they are not very good, or worse, they are rogue traders that take money from customers with no intention of completing the works.