Home improvement companies that offer finance but are not a rip off !

Littlebobo1981

Hi,

Have recently had Anglian home improvements round and although i liked everything they offered (finance, ability to arrange planning permissions etc) their prices were astronomical when compared to smaller local firms ( at least 10K more expensive, even before adding the costs of a finance package on top) ...

I have since looked at other possibilities but i would really like to know if there are other companies out there that offer similar to Anglia but wont keep me all day chewing my ears off only to give me a price which is :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

Also, the main reason we looked at Anglia was down to previous local tradesmen working on our home and then not doing a great job and leaving us with things unfinished and wanted a more reputable larger company ...

Furts

So many issues, so many flaws, where does one start? If you wish to do no due diligence, no effort, just sit around , delude yourself on companies, have no concept of the word "reputable" , be vague about the concept of a national contractor, and receive high pressure sales spin then go with Anglian, or any company you can find.

You want the best of all worlds but are not prepared to pay the price that goes with this.

Briefly - reputable = no. You only have to consult Which, or trawl the web, or ask here, or do an mse search to see Anglian are dross.

Quality - What have you asked about Anglian using rough and ready sub contractors to undertake their work? What mechanisms will you have in place to control, manage and inspect this? Don't believe me? Back to Which magazine and so on.

National company - who knows if my local office tucked away in a large office suite is nothing more than a franchised telephone answering system. What have you asked about franchises?


Time spent with you - that is what you are paying for in the £10000 extra. Anglian want to hold your hand and this has to be paid for

£10000 additional cost. You are paying for somebody to spend the day doing a sales spin. You are also paying to fund a flashy car, a salary, overheads, admin, an office and, the obvious one, an enormous commission on the overall scheme price. You cannot expect all this to be FOC. Clearly you want all this because if not you would not be dealing with Anglian in teh first place. Which comes onto the next point ...


Is the sales person adding any value? Of course they are adding nothing but their personal greed. Their role is to extract the maximum sum of money possible from you - back to the £10000.


Dealing with Planning Permission and so on. A fatal error to delegate your responsibilities. You need to be in control of everything to make sure it is done properly. Delegating to a commission greedy sales person is total folly. Think ineptitude, mark ups, commission.

You cannot expect the Anglain experience, dreadful as it is, without budgetting a substantial premium for all this experience. You are being utterly unrealistic, or naive, in so many ways!

tacpot12

I would suggest select a local Home Improvement company based on recommendations from people you know that have had work of a similar scale and complexity done . Ideally they will have been trading for a long time, and have many customers whose home you can visit to view the quality of the work they deliver. I would look at a couple of jobs and talk to the home owners; ask about how the work was done, and any problems they had and listen carefully to the answers. Hopefully you will find a company who see finance as being anything other than an enabler for the odd customer who needs it. Haggle with them on the price and the specification, get a written quote and check with an expert that it is complete. While you can't delegate certain responsibilities completely, you can delegate the detailed work and administration to others; just agree how you will retain oversight of this.

If you don't have the expertise or the ability to properly supervise the firm, you really need to hire someone who can do this. I've had to ask tradesmen to leave site because they were clearly not as skilled as they had represented - are you prepared to do this?

Littlebobo1981

I'd go with Naive, our neighbour used them and was nothing but positive about them..telling me they were not like the others etc ...neighbours opposite have had nothing but problems with planning permission and we had a very negative experience with tradesman and an architect prior ..yes we are exceptionally green that's why i asked on here !

The guy was far from flashy..actually probably the opposite tbh ..anyway that's not the point, obviously what they offer isn't offered by another company and it means that i have to rethink it all ..I am very fearful of being rejected planning permission and architects and so on ...

All help in what i should be doing is gratefully received.

Littlebobo1981

Hire someone like a project manager ?

Furts

Not every Anglian job will be a disaster. Your neighbour may have received a good one. But be careful here - is the neighbour getting a kickback for saying this? It happens!

Have you scrutinised what Anglian did for the neighbour? Was it really any good?

Is the neighbour qualified to know what is a good job? If not, which is likely, then ask why are they singing the praises of Anglian?

You have not said what home improvement you are seeking, but the leg work, the research, the due diligence, and so on has to be done by you. A Project Manager might be the answer, but you have to prepare the brief, and guide them.

Littlebobo1981

It's a garage conversion with extension to join it to the house ..not a massive space ..think i will go back to the drawing board.

Have seen the work Anglian have done and to be fair it looks great but not the same thing we are looking for as there's was a simple conservatory.