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12
Feb
The Trade Association Federation of Master Builders (FMB) took a bit of a pasting on last night’s Watchdog. The Federation of Master Builders is the largest trade association in the UK building industry, representing over 13,000 building companies.
What does the Federation of Master Builders promise?
The Federation of Master Builders states on their website…
“The Federation of Master Builders promotes standards of excellence and helps its members to continually improve levels of business performance and customer service. Our members are carefully vetted before they are allowed to join, and are required to adhere to a strict code of practice. Only those builders and specialists who can prove their skills and good business standing are accepted as members.”
- A minimum of 12 months trading, or is otherwise able to demonstrate experience enough to warrant membership
- 6 references including one from a ‘professional’ or Local Authority Building Control
- Local Federation of Master Builders Branch approval
- Public and employer liability insurance
- No un-discharged bankruptcies or relevant outstanding County Court Judgments against company or directors
- VAT registration (where appropriate)
- Confirmation of business address/details
- Credit checks, public record and director checks
Federation of Master Builders on Watchdog
Watchdog was following up recent complaints from consumers of bodged building works by Federation of Master Builders; houses left uninhabitable and a disabled access ramp which you can’t get up - is this the definition of a Master Builder?
Bodged building work costs customers over a billion pounds every year, so how can you make sure you are picking the right person. Advice can be to go to a Trade Association and the biggest in the building industry is the Federation of Master Builders. They say if you pick one of their members its “a sure fire way to avoid cowboys”.
But for some watchdog viewers this might not to be the case….
Irene Turner has a new ramp for her wheelchair that she can’t get up. After £44k worth of works to her home to give her wheelchair access, a year later and she still can’t get through her patio door and the floor has a slope of 2 inches.
Chartered Surveyor Barry Cross estimated costs of £19k to rectify faults they have identified with the building works, saying the workmanship is poor and unacceptable. The Federation of Master Builders are looking into it - but Irene expected more and as yet there are no plans for the FMB to visit her home and check out the situation.
Ian Vickerstaff expected a better quality of work from his Federation of Master Builder but building regulations were not adhered to, electrics were messed up and the FMB builder dangerously built the extension over a mains gas pipe. Eight months since the works started, the house is derelict and Ian has sent the FMB builders off as he felt they were doing more harm than good.
The Federation of Master Builders say that if a member gets it wrong they will take it seriously and investigate. However, after Ian’s complaints to the FMB, no one visited the site. The FMB wrote to the builder concerned to see if they agreed with the accusations, which unsurprisingly they did not, so now it’s gone to arbitration.
What did the Federation of Master Builders have to say?
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Richard Diment, DG FMB, defended the FMB on Watchdog: “These are exceptions to what people usually find with FMB builders and the short reports I don’t think show the full picture and there are further complications in each of these cases.”Watchdog questioned the Federation of Master Builders about their promise to investigate complaints - if they don’t go to site and see the work, how can they fulfil their promise? |
Richard Dimmer commented “What we are trying to do is get resolutions to problems that the customer has and we believe in the vast majority the process does get a satisfactory solution. In the case of Mrs Turner, the case is still going on and the builder has agreed to go back to see what’s happening and put it right. We are making changes so people have the confidence in using an FMB builder”.
So, are the reliability promises of the Federation of Master Builders actually founded? What do you think and if you are registered with them what are your view points? Every story has many sides so we want to hear yours.
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15 Responses to “Federation of Master Builders”
Things are worse than you thought ! Recently a builder was featured on BBC Look North after a customer complaint for demanding a £30,000 final payment for a poor quality and unfinished job, the builder then changed the locks on the customers house and refused them access !—Theres worse ! The builder in question has just been voted in by his peers as FMB Regional Chairman in the northern region and is a National Delegate, which means he is a main board director of The FMB !
If you look on The BBC news website and search for “Couple Locked Out Of Home” you will find the programme.
I had my kitchen refitted by an FMB kitchen “expert” and he carried out electrics notifiable under Part P Building Regulations, but did not notify them, and now I have no Buildings Compliance certificate. The FMB complaints procedure is hopeless. After my initial letter, the builder replied saying he had done nothing wrong (of course!) so the FMB recommended arbitration which costs money (up to £1,000). They did not actually look at the facts of my complaint or get involved apart from passing my letter to the builder and vice versa.
Sorry to hear about your problems, but not surprised when FMB have as their main board directors people who have been featured as virtual rougue traders on TV and are supported and promoted by The FMB. There are good builders and ethical businesses within the FMB, but some sad to say seem to be leaving , disillusioned by the lack of action the organisation takes against firms and individuals who clearly have not operated within the code of practice they signed up to when they joined the FMB.
Search BBC News North East for “Couple locked out of home” , view this clip and you will see an example of a board director of The FMB at work, how he runs his business and treats people—it’s an absolute disgrace, but the individual is supported by The FMB, one has to ask why ? and can The FMB possibly have any credibility with the consumer ?
We have had a nightmare build by a member of the federation of master builders, M J Till Builders Ltd. Two companies of Chartered surveyors have written reports - both concluded the only way to redeem the problems would be to pull the building down and start again. A massive report was put into south eastern region FMB about all of the defective workmanship - they responded by saying the builder had gone on a 3 week holiday and would deal with the complaint when he returned. When he returned, the FMB said his membership had lapsed and they could nothing about the problems. Just weeks later, he is now sporting his membership with them, the NHBC and Trustmark - checks on their computer ‘find a builder’ show he is yet again registered with them.
In addition to the terrible workmanship - he built the building too high out of the ground - too high as well - retrospective planning was required. Building control would not sign off his work due to defects and problems. A chartered structural engineer condemned aspects of his workmanship.
The office of fair trading are powerless - Trading Standards who hand out the Trustmark membership are just as useless.
The consumer has no power except through the courts.
Dear Annette
Sorry to hear about your problems with an FMB Builder, unfortunately this situation is arising too often.
My view is that the FMB needs purging of these rogue traders and it should start at the top by kicking one of it’s management board directors out, whose firm was exposed on TV for shoddy workmanship, demanding £30,000 for incomplete work and then changing the locks on the customers home locking them out. When a FMB Management Board Director behaves in this fashion, what hope is there ?
The FMB must act and be seen to be acting against these rogues, FMB’s claim of being ‘THE SIGN OF BUILDING QUALITY’ simply does not hold any credibility any longer.
I could mention a lot more things that FMB members do and talk about in meetings that would shock you to the core.
I am an FMB Member trying to maintain standards in workmanship,customer service, business ethics, health & safety and employment relations, however a revolution in the organisation of The FMB is required to cut out the rotten wood and restore and uphold the standards FMB Members are supposed to have.
The FMB is useless-I moved into a house recently where the builder boasted he was FMB accredited. The finishibng was some of the worst I have ever seen. Anyone can join the FMB-it’s a racket!
We have just come out of arbitration with the FMB. It was a whitewash. The arbitrator didn’t even look at our evidence in reply to the builder. It’s not even noted on the report. Jobs for the boys I’d say. We have a massive bill to pay a man who deliberatley under priced the job and added extras, the workmanship was no better than a bad DIYman and he covered up and ignored some very dangerous building faults. We had to have the majority of the work redone.
Where did we go from here?
Hi I just read your post about FMB and must say that I am not supprised most members have mid to large companies and hide behind a badge that is supposed to put confidence in the customer I have found that a lot of cowboy outfits have these types of badges to hide behind and a fe employ cowboys to undertake work for them. I have been approached by a few trade bodies but find that the criteria are geared towards the big boys and have nothing to offer the small companies that have pride in what they do.
I myself work to my own rules making sure that customers are 100% happy throughout any work carried out I never ask for money upfront and stick to any written quotes. I never demand full payments until work is complete and keep to all current building regulation. I find that most big companies with all the relevant trade bodies behind them realy to much on the badges they have with no real control over the people they have working for them. I find the best method when choosing a builder is to listen to others who have used them in the past and check previous work they have undertaken. it is so hard these days to find someone you can trust. but there is a few of us out there.
I personaly know a few members of trade bodies who do not deserve to be let loose on the public but they seem to find away around fitting any criteria laid out by these trade bodies lets face it all it is really about is collecting a subscription fee each year.
Hi All,
I’m afraid that, even in 2011, things have not improved. We chose an FMB approved builder as we felt that we would be avoiding the kind of cowboy builder you see on TV programmes. Timescales were crucially important to us as I was pregnant with our twins. This was made very clear to all builders who came to quote and one declined to quote as he had other work commitments and would not be able to commit to completing within our deadlines (at least he showed some shred of decency).
Unfortunately the FMB builder we chose IS a cowboy. He showed scant respect for our situation, broke virtually every provision in the FMB Code of Conduct and presented invoices incorrectly (billing us for work that hadn’t yet been completed, billing us for items included in the contract price, the list goes on). When we asked him to clarify his invoicing practices, he simply threatened further charges.
Despite his own project schedule stating that the work would be complete 6 weeks before the birth of our twins, the work was still not complete whilst I was in hospital, having just had a C section. He did some work following that, but withdrew labour saying we were in breach of contract for not paying his trumped up invoices.
He is now taking us to court, despite the fact that we have tried to negotiate a settlement with him and have made him a more than generous offer.
Naturally we will be submitting a counter claim. But we are also going to complain to the FMB. Not because we think it will get us anywhere, but apparently courts take a dim view of parties to legal action not first trying all avenues as provided for by the contract.
The issue mentioned above regarding keys is an interesting one. Our builder has, despite verbal and written requests, refused to return our keys. We will also be including the cost of new locks within our counter claim.
The FMB website is very slick and claims to provide peace of mind for the consumer, unfortunately this is most definitely not the case. It is paid for by the membership fees builders pay to it. They wouldn’t be able to encourage people to sign up for membership if they had a reputation for supporting consumers in disputes with builders. Their code of conduct is worthless and they don’t carry out the vetting procedures they claim to.
We are most disgruntled!
I too have had numerous problems with my fmb builder.
fortunately the main construction seems to be sound but Ive had numerous trips on my electrics despite getting a part p cert. floors were cut up poorly and not along joist lines and ive had to replace two and now may have to do a third. boiler instalation isnt totally in accordence with wocesters specification and im in the pro cess of th trying to get that resolved now. to be fair he has come back to resolve a few problems ( which were doewn to shoody work in the first place) floor tiles in my extension were cracking and the grout was falling apart he lifted 35 in all to try to fix it and this left me unable to use my kitchen for 2 weeks and a lot of the porcelain tiles were also chipped in the process I now have tiles cracking and lifting in my downstairs bathroom. he just said thats not down to yuus, the building indspector e wh ovisited today said that the most likely cause is a leak in a water pipe under that area. Ive tried contacting hin to fix this butr he has now said that after getting advice from his federation he will notr be answering my mails and will contact me in due course this was 3-4 weeks ago i still havent heard a thing. so the question i would ask is what type of federation would discourage communication between the builder and the customer??? I really thought the fmb would offer me peace of mind i was sadly wrong.
I was unlucky enough to be swayed by their logo “The sign of building quality” My builder, an FMB member was engaged to point the walls and roof of our house. Within 6 months sections of the pointing had fallen out and rain was entering the building. I complained to my builder who was not interested so I took the matter to the FMB enclosing photos of the shoddy work. They contacted the builder whose reply was the work was ok when they left and they could not be accountable for frost damage. The FMB were unable to help
I am not suprised at the problems people are having with FMB Builders. I as a builder who was on The FMB National Council and represented FMB at National level at external organisations have now left The FMB, so disgusted am I at their attitude to bad workmanship, treating customers in a disgraceful manner and their policy on Health & Safety issues. This is not suprising as The FMB Management Board and National Council consists of individuals who have a string of failed businesses behind them, buisnesses that have been issued with HSE Prohibition Orders and even one who was exposed on BBC Look North as a rougue trader ! The executive that run FMB, Richard Diment and Brian Berry are well aware of all of these issues and also obviously of the numerous complaints coming in, however they choose to do nothing because they they are weak incompetents paying only lip service to the so called standards of the organisation and are subservient to a collection of dubious individuals who are the National Council and Management Board. It is my view that The FMB should be put out of business and closed down, because they simply do not maintain standards within their membership.
An update on my previous note:
The saga continues. Building Control have informed us that the electrical work was never notified to NICEIC and therefore we have no certification to prove it was done safely. We have also discovered the builder did not use a Gas Safe registered plumber to carry out the re-siting and installation of a new boiler (which is illegal). We are now having to pay to have all this checked and rectified.
The builder’s invoicing practices are bordering on fraudulent. When we complained to the FMB, we raised his invoicing practices as a major area of concern. (Incidentally the FMB complaints process is nothing short of a photocopying and forwarding process, a complete waste of time. They even admitted to me on the phone that they don’t read the complaints that come in!) In his response to the FMB, the builder submitted invoices which had been altered from the originals presented to us. (Payment terms altered to make his invoices comply with the contract, retention sums deducted even though they hadn’t been and we had paid the retention on the first two invoices.) We wrote back to the FMB and pointed out that their member was committing fraud. No response from them! They don’t care! The FMB is a club where they all look after each other.
After our complaint was closed we invited the builder to commence legal proceedings against us if he felt that was the course of action he wanted to take. We then heard nothing from him for a period of 9 months. Now all of a sudden he has crawled out of the woodwork, demanding payment and threatening legal action if we do not pay, immediately, a vastly inflated sum plus interest that he has allowed to accrue for almost a year (which is in breach of the contract, but why should he care?).
Perhaps it is again time that the media looked into this? Perhaps another outing on Watchdog would enable consumers to be more aware that the FMB is a total sham?
The last post is further evidence that The FMB are not what they purport to be and I agree that the organisation and the individuals that run it should be exposed again on TV, the reality is that the organisation has lost thousands of mebers over the past few years as genuine firms realise the shortcomings of the organisation in respect of technical and business standards and fair dealing.
I was involved nationally with The FMB, but have now left, if you were to contact me I could probably assist you with information .
I have recently complained to the FMBs about one of their members and all the seemed to do is take my complaint pass it to the builder and ask for a response. the builder gave a response and they just sided with it say there you go nothing more to do. They don’t seem to actually protect customers and are only there to sell their members as reputable. But when you have an issue they don’t do anything about it.
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