FOLEY ALLAN

With a background in telecommunications and having sold the company I formed in 1989, I decided to retire in 2000. With my new found riches I decided to extend my house in Redland. I went the usual route: an architect drew up plans and I fired them off to three builders, naturally accepting the lowest quote. How very clever of me…... … 12 months and £120,000 later the extension was finished, and so pretty much was I. It was a nightmare with weeks on end passing with no builders and endless calls ignored. Added to this, as I later found, having trusted these muppets with the keys to my house, pretty much everything I held dear and of value seemed to have disappeared... I wondered if there might be a better way to have this sort of work done, simply by applying the normal skills of industry, for example: communicate with customers, be honest, use honest and house-trained tradesmen, and do what you say when you say. Easy enough you may think. Hmmm…

Primary location: United Kingdom