Everything in this review can be verified with screenshots of WhatsApp conversations or emails. There is no speculation or hearsay in what I write. I'm not a competitor (as Lee Murphy tried to tell me all his bad reviews were!)
I would not use this company again if they were the last building company on Earth!
Between Lee (Co. director) and Dave (project manager), I have never encountered 2 people that were greedier, lied more or were less interested in the job they were contracted to do
It was a 12 week build that took 18 weeks. It would have taken considerably longer had my wife and I not completely driven the project!
LMB do not employ tradesmen, they employ subcontractors. When you employ LMB they are effectively project managing your job (or not, for us)
The financial structure is that we paid LMB a deposit (in our case c. £12k), then a 'pre start payment' (in our case c. 4k). They then told us to pay all tradesmen directly
Doing it this way means that they take all of their money up front, and therefore have NO INCENTIVE TO FINISH THE JOB!
We were set up on a WhatsApp group with all of the tradesmen that would complete the build. In principle this was great but in practice the communication was atrocious. Tradesmen would turn up adhoc and almost never gave any notice (following the instruction of LMB). Both my wife and I work full time so this caused no end of issues
Every week we asked for a schedule of works so we could arrange to have someone home when tradesmen arrived. LMB absolutely refused to give us one. In fact the project manager was defensive and rude in regards to this, I quote: 'Paul, you know the schedule of works is done on a Friday'. We never had a schedule of works. Ever. Let alone on a Friday. Every time we asked for a schedule we were told 'don't worry, we're ahead of schedule!'. Then they went 6 weeks over
In the end my wife and I had to take shifts staying at home on the off chance that a tradesman would arrive unannounced
Mostly the tradesmens work was of a good standard (except for the roofer and carpenter). The 2 guys that actually built my dormer were fantastic. If it wasn't for them the project would have completely fallen apart. They ended up finishing the carpentry and snagging too
The carpenter took 5 weeks to do 5 days worth of work, then disappeared! I contacted him (as I had to do with all of the tradesmen - Dave rarely did it) and he told me he had hurt his back. That was the last I heard from him
The roof was ridiculous. It was put on and I was then told by Dave I should make payment, despite no inspection. I then climbed the scaffolding to inspect it (it was behind awning). The ridge line was bowed, tiles were put on crooked, no clips were screwed down, no lead over the windows - it was an appalling job. I had to call the roofer back 4 TIMES before it was correct
Dave the project manager was beyond terrible. He checked ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
He was incompetent, rude, unreliable and generally terrible at his job but reluctantly I had to remain civilised. If I even attempted to push a point he would instantly get defensive and condescending, and all communication would stop again so nothing would get done. On one occasion he actually said 'Paul, you're not my only client you know'. He also repeatedly threw Lee under the bus, telling me how Lee constantly messed jobs up and he had to correct Lee's errors
I had to get an independent builder in to assess the build. When the issues they found (such as no sealing around the windows and no seal around the soil pipe to name a few) were bought to LMB's attention, they resolved them. Sounds reasonable, but LMB hadn't picked up on them. Had I not PAID an independent builder, they would never have got done, and the issues that would have resulted would be expensive and inconvenient to repair
Lee lied, stalled, tried to take money where it wasn't due (he's obsessed with money), refused to communicate, refused to give us any kind of schedule of works, ignored messages, was rude and absolutely refused to take any responsibility for any wrongdoing. And that's barely scratching the surface
Any time money was owed, Lee was absolutely, utterly relentless asking for it. He would ask repeatedly, over phone call, by message and email until the funds were transferred. It bordered on threatening. We made payments timely always, so this was surprising and unnecessary
If they are did this to us, I can only imagine how other clients are being treated. I struggle to believe a single positive review about them