No cash upfront — unless the builder is Polish
Prices quoted for an extension in Edinburgh.
• £30,000
• £57,000
• £65,000
• £80,000
Which one would you go for? I was posed this question at the Homebuilding & Renovating show this weekend in Glasgow. David Snell and I had just been dispensing “unmissable” advice on how to run building jobs. One of the pearls to fall from our collective lips was “Never pay upfront.” But the lady from Edinburgh who approached us afterwards with her dilemma explained that the £30,000 quote came with a sting in the tail. She and her husband had been asked to pay a deposit of 50% upfront if she wanted the job done for £30,000.
Instinctively, one smells a rat. Why should a builder want a deposit of any kind, let alone 50%? They buy materials on credit, they pay their subcontractors in arrears, if they can’t float a building job for two or three weeks without a cash injection, there must be something fishy going on here.
But after asking her a few more questions, a more complex picture of what was happening began to emerge. For starters, the guy offering this very low price was Polish and was newly arrived on our shores. He was offering access to Polish labour at Polish rates and, additionally, he was constantly ferrying building materials across from Poland where they are very much cheaper than the UK. What is more, he has already done jobs successfully for one of her friends and also a cousin: he comes highly recommended. He had also impressed with his Can Do attitude. The other builders had sucked their teeth when they saw that the house to be extended was set up a flight of steps, which will necessitate hand-balling all the materials up and over. The Polish builder hadn’t even mentioned it as a problem.
The clinching point was a connection with the Baptist church. Now, I don’t know much about Baptists but I can imagine that, as well as being a religion, it’s also a support network and this Polish builder had become a member of the Baptist congregation that the woman and her husband belong to. It seems his workload is mostly coming from the congregation.
Her husband was inclined to take the Polish Baptist builder at his word, to trust him with £15,000 and let him get on with the job. The wife was obviously a bit more cautious by nature and had taken the time to come and see what David and I had to say about the matter.
In the end, I came around to her husband’s point of view. Ultimately, there are no hard and fast rules about how to select a builder. There are guidelines-a-plenty but the final decision comes down to your own judgement and that’s all about who you choose to put your trust in. The many Polish builders currently setting up shop in the UK seem to enjoy an enviable reputation for honesty and hard work, to say nothing of dramatically undercutting the prices of the locals. Whether this will last, only time will tell. Doubtless there will be a few Polish rip-off merchants and quite a few useless Polish builders, just as there are with all ethnic groups in all walks of life. But at the moment, the nation’s homebuilders and extenders seem to be in thrall with Poland and all the fit young builders they are currently exporting to us.
posted by Mark Brinkley @ 10:39 AM
14 Comments:
Hello,
Could you share the name of the Polish builder - we are looking for a good builder for some renovation work.
Thanks!
Hello,
I would just like to point out that the polish should not be trusted so easily! There have been several articles in the newspapers about Polish builders running away with substantial portions of the money they asked for having only completed a small amount of the work, barricading themselves in their clients houses when they haven't been paid for work they haven't done etc. Also on a more personal note I would just like to add that my family employed a Polish building firm based in Gloucestershire who did 25% of the work we contracted them to do and walked away with 75% of the money when we wouldn't give them any more!
I would just like to say that one should exercise extreme caution when dealing with Polish builders who offer cheap quotes for cash installments. Make sure you draft air tight contracts and have researched properly what you want done and how. My last piece of advice is that the Polish might offer cheap quotes but British Builders are generally more reliable, a lot faster and easier to track down and sue when things don't go so well!
Polish Polish Polish
Have you heard of the Polish saying, and this is from my father who was also a builder like me, and this is going back long before the flood gates were opened. It comes from ploishing your price, meaning to reduce your price.
P eople
O ffering
L owcost
i ncentives
S pells
H assle
Sometimes when you pay less....it costs you more......
I like your comment on the polish your price not because I have anything against the polish, like you. Live and let live, but you sound old school taught. I have some building work that needs doing could you e-mail me on masjargan@aol.com so we could discuss my building project please.
Malcom
any change of the builders name and telephone number
HALLO TO YOU ALL
first of all im in shock of what im reading
my name is Pawel im polish builder
i have been in london for about 12 years now have dun many jobs but i must say i have incountered some problems my self with costumers that would just simply refuse to pay for work thats why we me personaly profer to get payments split in 3 so no one can be harmed
in the proces i have been harmed many times by tricky and greedy indiviuals i shouls say becouse we all are at the end of the day,there is all kids of individuals in this world we can call them all up but it would not resolve anything at all
First of all 10 years ago i remember everybody complaining about the english builders for overcharging if you remember i tell you what: in stead give me a ring i have about 17 year experience and 8 hard working polaks availeble for your services
london and we will travel also for the wright price off corse my number is 07792387441 or you can email me pawelperepeczo@hotmail.com corgi reg plumbers availeble and we have the can do attitude with the perfect finnish thank you all for reading
polish ????????????? not to be trusted!!!!!!!!!!!!
you English are so ignorant the topic
of worlds misery! you British have worked on this for centuries robbed and killed in slaved u lot complaining as usual thats the favoret activity of British papole hypocritical you are to the max it is your gaverment who asked polish troops to come and help
fight againts the talibans so you can go and steel the oil from them and put our country under risk bom attack in exchange you will let us in 500.000.000 £ a year for taxes from polaks only you should be ashamed of your selfs
why dont you idiots wake up and face the trompets and the most is still to come
do you all think that muslims going to leave you alone ???? ha you will soon find out when thay try to take over the countrys you will not be able to stop them anyway so i would be leaving polish peapole in peace if i was you, we never attacked or harm no one witch i can not say about britan
Polish builders are cheap because they don't live here. I've seen how they live in this country like farm animals 4 to 1 bedroom. i'm a british builder with a family and a mortgage i can't compete with them unless i start to live like them
Hi everybody,firstable i would say i really commiserate for british builders it must be absolutely annoying competing with them but i am absolutely sure there are loads of costumers which choose just british builders.In my opinion many jobs would not be undertaken becouse many of people can not afford for higher prices thus there are more work.Just look all round do the british couldn't build before polish builders came?!But definitely there are so many neglectet houses which would never be renovated.Referring to the latest research,day by day polish builders go back to Poland becouse of the growing economic and constantly falling down sterling exchange rate.About quality,hmm..For the last couple of days i have been observing through my window builders wchich were not definitely polish or pithy british they did speak english though.They were paving in front of the doorway in terraced two storeys house,everything looks good from a distance BUT !they were mixing mortar by hand a bit aside from arising pavement on a existing pavement made of red bricks belonging to the public without any protection,at the end of the day they splashed a bit the rest of the mortar with water pushing aside all the scum,as a result of that it is look like big patch from my window view,but belive me it is nothing referring to the worst of it i.e.the mortar which were put aside blocked drainage path,next to it there is bench where the youth seat and children play arround,after rainy day i can imagine what would i see-big pool.
Summarizing everybody is not created for logical thinking.Well,despite of all the myths belong on your common sens chosing the proper builder.By the way i'm polish builder:)so if you lookin g for a builder i'm all yours.Working within M25 clockwise and anticlockwise:)any enquires or comments to my post please send on:refurbishmentprofessionalism@googlemail.com
refurbishmentprofessionalism
@
googlemail.com
Hi,
We had quite a similar situation with other Polish builders in London. We had done our apartment (converted from an old office) for just 25k + materials (that is bit more than half quoted by cheapest builders in our area)
Conversion took just 10 weeks (60 long days - they do work Saturdays and they do work 10h a day if needed)
At the end we had 2 bathrooms + separate WC + separate washing/drying room + storage + mezanine bedroom + large open space living and dining area with kitchen and even a built in wall TV
For those interested - www.pol-trade.co.uk
the guy is called Aleksander.
His mobile - 07854002217 (hope he doesn't mind)
this makes me a bit angry, like was mentioned above, how can us english builders compete with polish who are living 10 to a caravan? i am a builder who lives in rip off britain, playing huge rates on my morgage, fuel, taxes and general living. everything else is getting more expensive but WE are expeced to drop our income to compete with imigrant workers with none of our over heads? it is not often mentioned that these polish workers often avoid tax and also take alot of their money back home with them. so how does our country benefit from that? oh ye, mr and mrs smith save a few quid on their extension, igor goes back to poland happy and your local builder strugles for work. come one people, support your local tradesmen. and dont forget, an english contractor employing english lads will pay them a good rate, a contractor paying polish workers, ( be him polish or english) will not pay those workers fairly and take the lions share for himself.
and I just wonder how can I compete with any other having polish reputation and living alone in my rented flat. there are all different kinds of cases and people. assessing by stereotypes is unfair.
i was a carpenter, i do not know where this idea of a 'builder' has come from, once upon a time there were these people called tradesmen, they spent years mastering one trade until they were VERY GOOD AT IT, anyone can complete a course, not everyone can become a master of the subject whatever it is, the problem with this country is that people want a mercedes but they only want to pay for a lada.
i am on the dole now, skint and making furniture in my workshop for friends. At least the 12 hour days are history now, so are my baggy eyes, and with the lack of money comes the joy of knowing i am not funding Gordon the Moron Browns flights of insanity.