Independent Warranty Association (IWA) anyone used them on builders projects?

buglawton

They seem to offer an escrow system for large deposits on building work and a warranty on completed work. But they seem to be a rather unknown organisation. Anyone used them, or know anything about them? Are they themselves backed up by any financial institution?

JaneStanley

IEO Home Improvements used reference to IWA as a selling point (our deposit would be covered). When IEO refused to return our deposit after refusing to do the work, IWA also refused to honour the insurance (they confirmed it was in place) as we hadn't been given a certificate. It doesn't tell you this on their website (or IEO quotation) and only says you can contact them for details of their terms and conditions. It appears they are using this excuse to refuse to pay out. Even when you do have a certificate, unless you have returned to say you are happy with the work (rather difficult when it never happened!) they still won't pay out.

Lynn_O'Keane

Hello , yes I know about them along with many others who are currently fighting to have their insurance guarantee's with them upheld.

buglawton

JaneStanley wrote: »

IEO Home Improvements used reference to IWA as a selling point (our deposit would be covered). When IEO refused to return our deposit after refusing to do the work, IWA also refused to honour the insurance (they confirmed it was in place) as we hadn't been given a certificate. It doesn't tell you this on their website (or IEO quotation) and only says you can contact them for details of their terms and conditions. It appears they are using this excuse to refuse to pay out. Even when you do have a certificate, unless you have returned to say you are happy with the work (rather difficult when it never happened!) they still won't pay out.

Where would there be evidence that IWA state they need you to confirm that you are happy with completed work, in order to reclaim a deposit? Since the only reason to try to claim is, either
a) You're not happy with completed work
or
b) Work was not completed at all
or
c) The main reason for needing IWA at all, that the builder has gone insolvent

Anyway, all of tha above is pointless unless there's a proper financial body underwriting the IWA, as there is for ATOL in the case of money spent upfront on holiday travel. Hence my original question.

buglawton

Ok, I've now found the Telegraph article from last May that put me onto the idea of building project escrow in the first place. It mentioned these people
http://www.homeimprovementsguarantee.co.uk
I'll do some more reading and report back to this thread.

chappers

What a load of old tosh and interesting that the FCA registration number they quote is no longer registered.
These companies just seem like parasites feeding off peoples insecurities, and basically acting as another trusted traders type register can't see many decent builders wanting to be involved in this payment via a third party nonsense.
Find yourself a decent builder, preferably by recommendation, or get several quotes and ask for references and check them out yourself. Make sure you have a schedule of payments agreed in advance and cut these chancers out.
They make out it costs you nothing and that the contractor bears the costs, but what do you think that is doing to your quote.

buglawton

And yet when tenants whack down a 6 weeks rent value deposit on a flat, they get the benefit of a proper govt registered escrow system such as DPS.

chappers

Find the right builder, set out a proper schedule of staged payments and don't pay them until they have completed the stages to your satisfaction.
I wouldn't take a deposit from a client unless they wanted me to order something out of the ordinary that was non-returnable right at the start of the project.
These people are no guarantee that a) you will find a good builder, in fact builders that have to use these types of companies to tout for work probably won't have the best reputation b) probably no guarantee that your money is any safer, surely the safest place is in your bank account until works are completed to your satisfaction.

buglawton

I agree in principle and this is how I'm proceeding - staged payments. In fact I dropped an experienced builder out of the quotes due to the fact that he wanted 50% upfront and I could not be bothered to haggle about terms. He was probably a good one from everything we discussed so I assume his terms are based on the fact he gets more work than he can handle anyway.

"Find a good builder" however is a pat phrase and not easy to do in S.E. England - how much experience does the average householder get of major projects in their lifetime? There ought to be a market for Escrow services. However not one plausible company or organisation has stepped up to the mark.

pkay26

IWA say that they vet the builder but they have been shown to have fallen short in the past year. They vetted and approved a builder (IEO Home Improvements Ltd) with a poor credit history and then avoided paying numerous warranty claimants due to various non-compliance reasons. To be covered by IWA you needed to be aware of the terms and conditions, you could only get these from the certificate which the contractor should give you. The builder avoided giving out the certificates so IWA say it is not there problem. It is not a very sensible system. The better system would be for the builder to tell IWA who he has taken deposits from and then for IWA to deal with the client. It makes sense to me !!

pkay26

They will only honour the warranty if the customer, not the trader ! has done everything correctly. But it is only the trader who knows what is required. This had led to a considerable number of warranties not being honoured.