We’ve very definitely fallen out with the gang of builders who were subcontracted on our job. The McGinnity brothers, trading as “Rohan Developments” are Barry (who I nearly came to blows with after an altercation a few weeks ago and whom we haven’t seen since) and Paul (his slightly more calculating brother who we and especially S had an altercation with last week) and are generally good actual builders but have several nasty tendancies to (a) big themselves up and think they know it all and (b) to “pad” their fixed price contracts with extras which only become chargeable after they’ve been done. They also make threatening demands for payment without following the due process we all agreed at the start.
Actually the worst offence from our perspective is that they fell out with More Space our building company and stopped communicating with them. This has meant that More Space has been out of the loop and unable to project manage effectively (things they say are ignored by the McGinnitys) and worse has meant that we’ve had to act as the go-between. This has mounted huge extra stresses onto the project.
As the project has gone on and the money for some of the disputed extras hasn;t been forthcoming, they’ve taken to cutting some corners on the project – presumably to boost their profits – apparently making the roofer work with offcuts of lead from another job rather than the bigger pieces he should have had and not providing suitable drill bits for their tiler to correctly cut tiles.
We’ve had a number of issues boil to a head (mostly financial) and each time we’ve tried to be as patient as we could, as firm as we could and to work something out and get on with the job. More Space are contractually obliged to complete the work as paid but it’s in their interests to let the McGinnitys finish before kicking them out. Increasingly we want nothing more to do with them and we are hopeful we have reached that point already. We’ll see. They have a few snags and clearing up to do before they can declare themselves finished.
Take this as an anti-recommendation – don’t bother employing Rohan Developments or the McGinnity brothers unless you want a troubling and expensive experience which doesn’t jive with their initially friendly and accommodating manners.