Federation of Master Builders (FMB) - Dispute Process an absolute Joke!

chris1012

I have a dispute with my builder who carried out some works for me late last year.
We appointed them based on the fact they were FMB and Trust Mark registered, provided us 10years guarantee on the work via IWA and the senior surveyor (spokes man for the company) assured us that they were the best company to carry out this task especially as we had a baby due soon after the works should complete.

The job was carried out without due care and subsequently we had issues with the shoddy workmanship and items (black and white in writing) in the contract being completely missed out e.g. a water supply to our F/F, Sash Windows.

We raised the concerns a few times during the works going on and on the third occasion the builder walked off site.

We then had some emails sent back and forth however was not able to come to any satisfactory agreement.
The builder offered some refunds but were unrealistic when compared to the cost of carry out the repair and outstanding work.


We spoke to a solicitor whom advised us there was enough grounds to go to small claims court and likely win however the builders contract stated that at any point of dispute, we would need to seek assistance from FMB at the first instance....

We contacted the dispute team at FMB in November and had to fill out a form raising all our issues and what we wanted as an outcome.
We sent the form to FMB and had to wait 21 days for a response (FMB simply forwarded the complaint to the builder).
After 21 days, the builder had not responded so FMB sent a chaser to the builder who responded a few days later (once again FMB forwarded over to us).

FMB then advised us to continue the process we had to meet the builder to discuss the issues documented or the process could not continue (FMB were not interested about the specifics of our complaint and never/refused to discuss them).

As we had no choice, we met the builder again to go through our initial complaint and as the company owner was still being very unreasonable, we felt we did not make any progress during the meeting but he advised us he would go back and amend some of the figures and pass the new proposal via FMB...

We had to wait another 3 weeks for a response and once we did, the new proposal offered the same refunds, as per above, and again the values were the same.
The builder even had the cheek to retract some refunds he initially offered, advise some areas of the issues no longer existed (in the first email response we had from him he acknowledge the issues and offered refunds for it) and even add some extra jobs he thought he had carried out as an extra even though they were clearly noted in the contract!
As we had some building companies out to quote us for the repair/outstanding work, we knew a rough figure that was realistic, which we advised the builder through FMB again.

I then got a call yesterday from FMB advising that they felt the builder had been fair and reasonable as they carried out a meeting and offered refunds, therefore we should be happy to accept.
I advised that none of our concerns have been discussed in any detail and no individual let alone a building company, would carry out the outstanding repairs/jobs for the refunds offered, to which they responded they cannot advise on specifics.
We rejected the proposal from the builder and they said there was nothing more they could do and close the case!


What a waste of 2.5months!

The building company are TrustMark registered as well but not sure if I should go down that avenue or now go direct to Small Claims Court.

Anyone else had any disputes with FMB registered builders and what avenues did you have to go down to get your money back!?

Furts

There are various threads about your problems going back months. What comes across is you know everything, and everybody who chips in with a reply receives no thanks. Coupled with this appears to be an obsession with detail, yet a unwillingness to accept any due diligence and any personal accountability. There has been a number of years of dismal failure with building works to your home(s). This thread is simply the latest episode ...


I live in hope that one day the penny will drop, and you will quietly, and calmly, consider your role in what has been going on.


You have been through some issues but remember life is not one sided. There is a concept of a builder from hell, but there are also many clients from hell. Have a think and see if both of these ring any bells with you.

chris1012

Furts wrote: »

There are various threads about your problems going back months. What comes across is you know everything, and everybody who chips in with a reply receives no thanks. Coupled with this appears to be an obsession with detail, yet a unwillingness to accept any due diligence and any personal accountability. There has been a number of years of dismal failure with building works to your home(s). This thread is simply the latest episode ...


I live in hope that one day the penny will drop, and you will quietly, and calmly, consider your role in what has been going on.


You have been through some issues but remember life is not one sided. There is a concept of a builder from hell, but there are also many clients from hell. Have a think and see if both of these ring any bells with you.

I think that is a very unfair comment.
Multiple people who I have spoken to and chipped in have received a thanks and some where you think may not have, I have personally spoken to them via chat and again thanked them.

Where there is personal accountability, I am ready to put/hold my hands up but as I have learnt from forums, every persons opinion is different and I while most think I have grounds for my complaint not all will see all in the same light unless they have gone through the whole process in person or have all facts at hand.

I am a fussy client and hence with my last project I paid for that type of service, which is well documented to the company and on the forums, so I think it is unfair to be punished for this!

elsien

Parent had a dispute over the final bill with a builder who belonged to the FMB hierarchy. FMB were as much use as a chocolate teapot.
Due to the sums involved, the builder could have gone to small claims but chose to take it to high court instead which would have involved barristers, that he knew parent couldn't afford. There was some compromise to get the final sum down (no issues with quality of work, just costs) but parent still felt ripped off.

Furts

I accept your view, and will not trawl back through threads and posts. My memory, which may well be wrong, is this ...by your own admission you are "a fussy client". This means you will have set out your stall to meet these requirements. Yet to this day nobody is aware of what due diligence you did with researching, visiting previous jobs, seeking references and then appointing your contractor(s).


This will be followed by written specifications. Plus details of what standards, and what quality, was required and how this would be benchmarked.


Next would come your management and quality control procedures, with site inspection and how this was linked into the payments regime.


All this is a typical procedure by a fussy client. I have no problem with any of this, I can work with it and I can empathise with it. Indeed it is all a known concept and procedure within the construction industry. But I have a niggling doubt, As a fussy client I am wondering what you did to meet all these requirements.


Clearly you have not convinced the FMB, nor have you won them over. Likewise with your builder. This suggests there is something wrong with your total innocence type approach.


By all means go after Trustmark, but what are you hoping to achieve by doing so? Court is the logical route but my intuition is this is a lost cause. But it is a lost cause because of the tactics you have adopted, and your role in all of the saga.

chris1012

Furts wrote: »

I accept your view, and will not trawl back through threads and posts. My memory, which may well be wrong, is this ...by your own admission you are "a fussy client". This means you will have set out your stall to meet these requirements. Yet to this day nobody is aware of what due diligence you did with researching, visiting previous jobs, seeking references and then appointing your contractor(s).


This will be followed by written specifications. Plus details of what standards, and what quality, was required and how this would be benchmarked.


Next would come your management and quality control procedures, with site inspection and how this was linked into the payments regime.


All this is a typical procedure by a fussy client. I have no problem with any of this, I can work with it and I can empathise with it. Indeed it is all a known concept and procedure within the construction industry. But I have a niggling doubt, As a fussy client I am wondering what you did to meet all these requirements.


Clearly you have not convinced the FMB, nor have you won them over. Likewise with your builder. This suggests there is something wrong with your total innocence type approach.


By all means go after Trustmark, but what are you hoping to achieve by doing so? Court is the logical route but my intuition is this is a lost cause. But it is a lost cause because of the tactics you have adopted, and your role in all of the saga.

So from a due diligence point of view - I initially only shortlisted companies that had FMB/TrustMark stamps and from the list I got a quote from around 8 of them.
The company we went with had a senior surveyor with many years in the trade and through multiple conversations and additions of our quotes, formed a very comprehensive contract.
It was far more detailed then any other contract we had received - an example from the contract:
New Floor & Floor Insulation
Supply and install suspended concrete flooring system comprising of 155mm deep beams, to include 1500Kg/m3 solid infill blocks set between beams. Supply and install 1200 gauge polythene DPM lapped with perimeter DPC and 80mm Celotex insulation lain to suit whilst incorporating a 500 gauge polyethene vapour control barrier as required. The new 70mm floor screed consisting of 1:4 cement/sand screed laid to comply with best practice conforming with BS8204: Part 1, Appendix B.

I spent a lot of time in discussing with the senior surveyor about our previous bad experiences and how this would be a refreshing experience and all would run with the highest care and attention.
I even remember apologising for being very fussy and cautious and his response was 'You can be as fussy and as cautious as you want. Our experience is perfect for what you need for this type of experience/project'.

We looked at 2 jobs of this building company and was provided 4 references that we checked by emailing the clients as well (although none of the jobs were a rebuild job as such').

With regards FMB - Honestly speaking, we had no conversions about specifics of the complaint at all nor what was being offered.
Literally it was a case of the following -
1. Send complaint
2. I have to meet the building company owner to proceed further
3. He is offering refunds - do you accept or not?

There was nothing else discussed or advised by FMB. Surely Mediation requires some sort of process of reason, middle ground etc
None of this was every discussed at any stage.

Maybe my methods of explaining things on a forum are not the best but I have had a solicitor read through this and as the builder accepted liability of faults, he feels there are good grounds for success in court...

Furts

Look back and accept facts - you have been through all the cowboy builder type saga before so this time round the procedure was to be as simple as it ever is ... In a nutshell

you commission the architect
you apply, and receive, a Full Plans Building Regulations Application
you write up the Specification before this
you appoint a Clerk Of Works ... and then go for tenders..

You have a signed contract with the builder,
you have a programme
you have stage payments to avoid front loading and you link these to quality
you liaise and make sure everything is ticking along fine

It does appear you checked out the contractor, but pity those wasting time pricing against seven others - be realistic here, and ask why other consumers should be footing the bill for these overheads.

Also pity the chosen contractor for having to compensate for your inability to draw up a Specification.

Then be savvy. If you are not in control of this Specification - and you are not because you did not write it - then how do you expect it meet your requirements?

Ultimately things have turned out second time round to be as disastrous as first time around. Yet you fail to learn from your misfortune, and you fail to see all your mistakes!

Best of luck in Court

Doozergirl

I had a full blown conversation with you in one thread where I went to quite some effort and didn’t receive one thank you, nor did we have a private conversation.

The FMB have changed the way they deal with disputes and it has been considerably diluted, but they always employed a third party to address disputes anyway. It was just that the builders half of the fee was covered by an insurance policy included in the price of membership. That policy is no longer in place. Hence your experience.

I have been involved in a dispute with a ‘fussy’ (read completely obtuse) client. It was fairly easy to see where we were going when our plumber had literally got out of his van and the complete stranger of a client said he didn’t want him!

We had a completely independent surveyor appointed to us and were able to submit 10 pages each of testimony. I think I wrote 7 (after speaking directly to the surveyor about what was professional to write about some of the bahaviour my staff had been subjected to and being advised to write everything) and then included all the quotes, invoices and contract on top. The client then threw a hissy fit at the surveyor because I’d submitted more pages than I should. I hadn’t, the contractual items have to be separate, of course or I’d have been over limit with just those. The client submitted hundreds of photos to minor detail that the point that the surveyor didn’t feel the need to come to site.

The upshot was that the surveyor found no defects; we needed to pay the client for some outstanding rendering which we were well aware of, but we were thrown off site and I’d had to issue small claims to get paid our last invoice and went for the whole amount. We owed £400. The surveyor was covered by insurance.

The client had to pay £450 to the surveyor and still had to pay someone to finish the job. (We would have actually done a lot more than the surveyor requested just to finish off the “goodwill” jobs but he deemed that they weren’t included). That’s karma right there.

I also call it research as they were our second ever paying client (bearing in mind we’d been developing for over a decade with oursleves as clients) and we learned very quickly that:
a) just because someone wants you to do the work, you don’t have to.
b) As above, vet your clients as much as you can! Gut instinct goes quite a long way. I’d advise all clients to do the same - pick someone you genuinely like because things do slow down, go wrong and building work is stressful and dirty even when it runs smoothly.
c) Value your work. If you don’t put a value on it, customers certainly won’t appreciate it. A HUGE proportion of people expect something for nothing - top quality at bargain prices. It’s all about price.
d) Below those are indeed cowboy clients who will take you for everything they can get.

On another job I learned *never* to work under an architect as project manager.

Since then, it’s all been pretty good. I would never quote for a job against 7 other builders. I’d not have quoted you. In fact, I probably wouldn’t against 2 builders.

Anyway, there’s a nice story for you.

A lot of your issues seem to boil down to the use (or not) of a caulking gun. I’m sure that many don’t, but I can see a misunderstanding over a small number of windows that would be hard to miss in an overall price with other people quoting too.
I’d pick your battles, certainly.

After all my waffling, I do think that an independent surveyor is a good thing as it puts true value on work outstanding. It’s a big shame that the FMB changed what they did. Both parties felt more secure, I think.

Jackmydad

Eight quotes!
If I'd been the builder. I'd have walked away.
I always asked how many were quoting for a job.
And I've simply not quoted for a few jobs. Sent a letter saying I was unable to provide a quote at this time.

chris1012

Furts wrote: »

Look back and accept facts - you have been through all the cowboy builder type saga before so this time round the procedure was to be as simple as it ever is ... In a nutshell

you commission the architect
you apply, and receive, a Full Plans Building Regulations Application
you write up the Specification before this
you appoint a Clerk Of Works ... and then go for tenders..

You have a signed contract with the builder,
you have a programme
you have stage payments to avoid front loading and you link these to quality
you liaise and make sure everything is ticking along fine

It does appear you checked out the contractor, but pity those wasting time pricing against seven others - be realistic here, and ask why other consumers should be footing the bill for these overheads.

Also pity the chosen contractor for having to compensate for your inability to draw up a Specification.

Then be savvy. If you are not in control of this Specification - and you are not because you did not write it - then how do you expect it meet your requirements?

Ultimately things have turned out second time round to be as disastrous as first time around. Yet you fail to learn from your misfortune, and you fail to see all your mistakes!

Best of luck in Court

Commission an Architect?
Building Regs?

This was not required as we weren't doing an any construction work/remodelling unless we have been misinformed?
Out of all the quotes we got, none of them mentioned about building regs or architect plans.

We live in London and there are many cow boy builders and the reason why we had to go through so many was some of the companies that came out, even though FMB registered, has no references to show us or their quote was half a page long or they didn't have a real plan to investigate/resolve the rodent and foul smell issue.
Out of the 7, only 3 really gave us an actual cost and the others where doing guess work.

I admit when we first got our work done, we did not do much research but and went simply on local recommendations however this time we thought we done the right thing.

Even with this company we appointed I had to ask for a schedule of payments as none existed and one was provided they had none for snagging and then I had to request for one...

If you speak to most in our area, they will all agree it is very difficult to find reputable and consistent builders and most will not know the process correctly.
My new neighbours who just moved in realised that they had no building regs upon completion of their renovation project and even they found the task daunting with many unknown areas they entered into.

The company didn't entirely build our specification, rather we sent him our requirements with additions and he put it in a form of a detailed quote.

Doozergirl

You asked people to investigate for a problem but then quote at the same time to fix it?

That’s delusional. You’re asking people to take on all the risk of a problem that belongs to you.

I’ve got it with a PWS right now who expects a method statement from us and drawings from our SE when we don’t know what’s under the ground. I could give them something categorical but then that compromises my integrity. We’ve written again asking to dig and investigate, then commit.

It’s the same thing. How can someone quote to fix what they don’t know and how can you have clear specification?

That was passing the buck. Again, I’d refuse to quote because it smells like a cowboy client who will then throw a tantrum when the work costs more than the poor idiot who did quote could have anticipated.

I have a site manager. He is brilliant at what he does, but he cannot run his own business because he can’t quote correctly and massively underestimates. When he does take a job on he falls out with the client but they’re getting great work for the wrong price. Everyone ends up bitter and no doubt the client feels they’re being ripped off but we had to physically lend him money to finish the last job he did for someone. He project managed a job and took responsibilty for the lot for less than his employed day rate. It doesn’t make him a bad builder.