London Expert Builders Ltd

WARNING!!!!Stay clear!!!!
The extension work agreed to start in Jan-2021 and supposed to be finished by April-2021. Builder was on site with 1-2 guys intermittently until September, with a lot of sub-standard work and unfinished work as outlined below. Builder did substandard work: 1) Rear extension roof leaking at multiple places 2) Front porch roof leaking at multiple places 3) Laminate flooring has cracks, uneven gaps, and creaking sounds Builder did not finish below work: 1) Front driveway 2) Front K2 rendering 3) leak-proofing the front and rear extensions and porch. 4) cavity wall filling
He fooled us by behaving like a friend. Took all the money and blackmailed us that if we don't pay then sub-contractor will not finish the job etc. That way, he took all the money, with the mentioned pending work.
I took quotes from multiple builders for fixing the issue and complete the pending work. They all in the range of £12k - £15k. I sent a notice to builder in Sept 2021 to come and finish the pending work. Since then, builder kept making false promises and no action taken. I had to pay out of my pocket for leaking porch roof, insulating cavity walls, to fix leaking rear extension etc . Electric safety certificate was not issued, I paid extra to get this done too. My family is in a deep mental trauma and my wife and I are suffering from stress and anxiety.  Now, dealing with this cowboy builder in court!!! More...

Don’t be fooled, not worth the hassle
We used this company towards the end of last year. Having read the previous review, I felt compelled to share our experience.

What started off as a good experience with a professional looking, well managed company (saying all the right things) soon descended into complete farce. Project was scheduled for 8 weeks (with another 2 weeks of extra work agreed). It had overrun by 4 months by the time we cut ties and decided to take legal action. The experience was good during the scheduled period when we were paying them weekly, but as soon as we only had the last instalment which was due on completion, the experience turned sour.

Main points:
-After relocating our boiler in our kitchen, London Expert Builders (LEB) couldn’t provide us with the necessary Building Regulations certificate. Lukasz insisted that a Gas Safety record from a plumber was sufficient. I organised a three-way conversation with the Gas Safe Register office who advised him that a gas safety record was not sufficient when moving a boiler but Lukasz disagreed with him. He also refused to confirm that the plumber who moved the boiler was gas safety registered (as was agreed would be the case in our original contract). Therefore, I called Gas Safe to complete a free inspection on the boiler. Alas they found: 9 gas safety defects due to the installation being ‘Not to Current Standard’, 1 gas safety defect due to ‘Building Regulations Non-Compliance’ (which we knew about) and 1 serious defect related to high carbon monoxide levels which classified the installation as ‘potentially dangerous and as a result may in the future constitute a danger to life or property’. The boiler was immediately classified as ‘At Risk’, our gas supply switched off and we were advised not to use the boiler. This led to a considerable additional expense in relation to fixing this.

-Part of the job required underfloor heating to be installed on the entire ground floor. This was not useable upon completion (we don’t believe they tested this following installation ). Over the course of 3 months following installation, we had to chase Lukasz on an almost daily basis, with several visits from LEB’s plumber and electrician but they were still unable to get the UFH working. Eventually, we brought in an independent UFH engineer (at our cost) who fixed the problem in a day. Apparently problems with the valve connections and lack of a system flush should have easily been picked up by the LEB plumber.

-New flooring (luxury vinyl) was also to be installed across the ground floor. Despite assuring us many times that they had fitted it before, the result was abysmal. Bumps and uneven surfaces, gaps in tiles, scratches and in the worst case, leakage of adhesive through the floor tiles. Worst still, the flooring had not been appropriately covered during the remaining period of works and as such, majority of the floor tiles had lost their original colour. The brand new floor looked about 10 years old! Lukasz eventually agreed to redo this 2 months later (he didn’t have much choice given how poor it was). However, it still took weeks of haranguing and chasing as well as the inconvenience of having to have the floor removed and re-fitted a second time.

-We never received any electric certificates, which were due to us following electrical alterations in the kitchen and garage conversion. I told Lukasz I would leave an outstanding electrics bill payment until he provided me with the certificates but he still refused. In fact he said after 4 months he would send someone round to have a look after we had a faulty socket replaced by another electrician. We still have not received any certificates.

-As said, after the scheduled end date (with the works unfinished) that’s when all the problems started. No response on emails and texts, unable to reach Lukasz for weeks on end with various excuses including a broken phone, vans breaking down, flat tyres, workmen in hospital or suddenly having to go on a trip abroad, Lukasz himself being in court for a speeding fine (that one was used a few times). At one point, the painter came but didn’t have any paint. It was in the other van which broke down!
It actually sounds quite comical writing down this experience but the stress, hassle and time spent dealing with this firm was unbearable. It’s really not worth using them or if you do, be aware of the above issues we faced. More...

Please be warned: DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY! My husband and I have had an absolute NIGHTMARE with them and their service is so bad, we are now taking them to court. (I know everyone says you won't get your money back off a builder but they have cost us our life savings so it's our only option to pursue them this way.)

We agreed a complete house refurbishment starting September 2019 which was due to be completed 8 weeks later. Cut to the chase: It still wasn't anywhere near finished in June 2020 and of the work that was done, we're having to get a huge chunk of it redone. The quality is shocking. Every builder we've had in to give us a quote to fix it has been appalled at what's been done.

Builders would often show up between 9-10.30am and be gone by 1/2pm, sometimes earlier, telling us they had to go to another job. Then they wouldn't turn up, or only one could come or someone had to go to Poland ( a regular excuse) so work stopped, someone was sick so no-one coming this week, or next week, at one point Lukasz's entire workforce was apparently sick (but not Covid-19). Weeks would go by with no-one turning up (and I'm not talking about during lockdown). The constant rotation of the guys who did come into our house meant someone would start one thing, disappear, someone else would take over, criticise the work done by the previous guy, then he would leave the job halfway through and on it went.

Examples of our experience: They started building our garden balcony using rotten wooden posts. It doesn't meet any safety standards, was left not even half done with no barrier around it (it's 12 feet off the ground and we have a 5 year old son running around!) and whole thing needs torn down and started again.

They were supposed to plaster and paint all walls. Didn't happen and the paintwork they did do is full of bumps, cracks and is flaking off. They tiled our hallway (and unbeknownst to us at the time, creatively charged us 3 different times for doing so in various invoices). The tiles started falling off and it took three attempts at the tiling before any bothered to use grout.The tiles are still falling off.

They did electrics in the house and have been problems ever since. They told us we needed new boiler, installed one and could never get it working properly - e.g., heating would work but no hot water or hot water would work only if heating on. This went on for months. They blamed the problem on everything you can imagine (last excuse was faulty thermostat) until we got qualified plumber in who rewired the boiler and fixed the problem in 50 minutes.

They installed a new bathroom for us top to bottom. The floor squeaks loudly when you walk on it because they didn't lay the floor properly. They didn't seal the bath off either..which resulted in us running a bath and the water coming through the spotlights in our newly installed kitchen ceiling, underneath. Some of the wall tiles in the bathroom got cracked when they put them on the wall. We would point it out, they'd replace those and break another few while doing the make good work. You couldn't make it up.

They laid new flooring in our bedrooms. It slopes. They then built our new sliding door wardrobes and one of the doors keeps falling off, the doors jam and won't slide and basically the wardrobes will now need to be replaced as they don't operate as simple wardrobes. Screws and metal wardrobe parts would just randomly fall off if you tried to open a door. The builders blamed the floors..that they laid.

They told us they had painted our external windows and window sills and charged us £2000 for external scaffolding to be up for duration of the project. (If I could post photos here I would!) It was unbelievable. The £2k scaffolding never appeared, the window woodwork was never sanded, we'd never even been asked a paint colour, some windows and sills were filthy and they haven't been touched and now, it will take more money to fix than before they started.

The list goes on but really, save yourself the trouble. Don't use this company!

Note: I have just seen the review by Nicole Hadid below. I wish I had seen it sooner. I echo her sentiments entirely. More...

Please be warned: DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY! My husband and I have had an absolute NIGHTMARE with them and their service is so bad, we are now taking them to court. (I know everyone says you won't get your money back off a builder but they have cost us our life savings so it's our only option to pursue them this way.)

We agreed a complete house refurbishment starting September 2019 which was due to be completed 8 weeks later. Cut to the chase: It still wasn't anywhere near finished in June 2020 and of the work that was done, we're having to get a huge chunk of it redone. The quality is shocking. Every builder we've had in to give us a quote to fix it has been appalled at what's been done.

Builders would often show up between 9-10.30am and be gone by 1/2pm, sometimes earlier, telling us they had to go to another job. Then they wouldn't turn up, or only one could come or someone had to go to Poland ( a regular excuse) so work stopped, someone was sick so no-one coming this week, or next week, at one point Lukasz's entire workforce was apparently sick (but not Covid-19). Weeks would go by with no-one turning up (and I'm not talking about during lockdown). The constant rotation of the guys who did come into our house meant someone would start one thing, disappear, someone else would take over, criticise the work done by the previous guy, then he would leave the job halfway through and on it went.

Examples of our experience: They started building our garden balcony using rotten wooden posts. It doesn't meet any safety standards, was left not even half done with no barrier around it (it's 12 feet off the ground and we have a 5 year old son running around!) and whole thing needs torn down and started again.

They were supposed to plaster and paint all walls. Didn't happen and the paintwork they did do is full of bumps, cracks and is flaking off. They tiled our hallway (and unbeknownst to us at the time, creatively charged us 3 different times for doing so in various invoices). The tiles started falling off and it took three attempts at the tiling before any bothered to use grout.The tiles are still falling off.

They did electrics in the house and have been problems ever since. They told us we needed new boiler, installed one and could never get it working properly - e.g., heating would work but no hot water or hot water would work only if heating on. This went on for months. They blamed the problem on everything you can imagine (last excuse was faulty thermostat) until we got qualified plumber in who rewired the boiler and fixed the problem in 50 minutes.

They installed a new bathroom for us top to bottom. The floor squeaks loudly when you walk on it because they didn't lay the floor properly. They didn't seal the bath off either..which resulted in us running a bath and the water coming through the spotlights in our newly installed kitchen ceiling, underneath. Some of the wall tiles in the bathroom got cracked when they put them on the wall. We would point it out, they'd replace those and break another few while doing the make good work. You couldn't make it up.

They laid new flooring in our bedrooms. It slopes. They then built our new sliding door wardrobes and one of the doors keeps falling off, the doors jam and won't slide and basically the wardrobes will now need to be replaced as they don't operate as simple wardrobes. Screws and metal wardrobe parts would just randomly fall off if you tried to open a door. The builders blamed the floors..that they laid.

They told us they had painted our external windows and window sills and charged us £2000 for external scaffolding to be up for duration of the project. (If I could post photos here I would!) It was unbelievable. The £2k scaffolding never appeared, the window woodwork was never sanded, we'd never even been asked a paint colour, some windows and sills were filthy and they haven't been touched and now, it will take more money to fix than before they started.

The list goes on but really, save yourself the trouble. Don't use this company! More...

Great service from Lukasz and Prakash and their merry team! Had a big job - executed perfectly. A lot of refurbishment of a grade 2 listed property, flooring, painting, building a new bathroom, electricals, landscaping, kitchen installation - you name it. All done with great skill and in budget. Always felt they were on top of things and stretching to get it done. I was really impressed by how openly they communicated and I never felt I needed to stress. Change of plans due to council permission - no problem, they focussed on finishing other things while i sorted it out. Finally - you don’t get just great execution - but people who suggest ideas to make things better, very happy to recommend. Rahul Shah, Hampstead, MBA (Oxon). More...

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