John Lincoln's building works at my house - august 2017

John Lincoln Choice Lofts / CJ lofts and extensions/Total Lofts Construction 

"The world suffers a lot, Not because of the actions of bad people, but because of the silence of good people"

anonymous 

In April 2017 after few quotes we contracted John Lincoln from Choice lofts in June 2017 to do a loft conversion with ensuite, toilet under stairs and open up the kitchen and dining room with us providing the bathroom, kitchen and new flooring.

He gave us a competitive quote with lots of extra work he offered to do and we foolishly employed him to do the works.

THE RESULTS

After paying him over 30.000 the result is that to date (Nov 2017) our house is unfinished, poor quality works have been carried out and big part of what he has done needs to be redone, not signed by building control and we are at loss, exhausted, stressed and practically broke.

I don’t wish this  to happen to anyone and this is why I am writing this blog, I will not sit in silence and allow this individual to carryon, I am not afraid to speak up, I am not afraid because I believe that truth will always resurface one way or another.

I am not afraid of John Lincoln or anyone else who may be involved in his bad work practices.

WHY?

BECAUSE I AM TELLING THE TRUTH AND BY NOT TELLING ANYONE I ALLOW THIS PERSON TO CARRYON HURTING OTHERS

Behaviour:

John comes across as friendly and likeable, he will tell you what you want to hear and he will offer to do jobs for free or little money, he will give you a very competitive quote and lots of alluring promises.

He often talks about his personal life whilst working and he is very keen on letting his clients know that he is a  “family man”, that he goes to church, that he is a “brownies leader”, that the job “is going to look nice when finished” but most of all…. That he is not "going to lie to you"

"I am not gonna lie to you" is is signature phrase....matter of fact, this is exactly what he is going to do

His works:

This man and his team (if it has one at all) have left my building in a dangerous inhabitable state, took our money and left us with damages for over 15000 pounds.

The works started well but after the second payment had slowed down considerably, he went on holiday (sponsored by us!) and left 2 workers to finish the loft insulation and plastering, having done himself the structure and the first fix electrics.

The worse happened whilst we were on holiday and we discovered that he had installed the wrong flooring in the loft, giving us very little update on the works, blaming the kitchen supplier for having delivered two damaged units and showed us pictures of electrical instalments.

We later discovered that he had left the damaged units outside in the rain for 3 days as witnessed by both my neighbours.

No gas installer and no electrician lined up, I started to get seriously worried and booked a gas installer from abroad, he reassured us that he would get the kitchen fitter (which he did) and electrician (non existent!)

John started making lots of personal excuses such as:

1. I am going through divorce
2. My kid is in hospital
3. My workers/ electrician/ plumber have left me 
4. My van got written off (truth...for drink driving!)

He then told us that he had run out of money and that he could not carryon the works for one reason or another.

We had already paid him 34.000 pounds and as per agreed contract we would give him 3.500 at finished job, so we retained the sum which we later realised was not enough to repair and finish the works

We arrived home on August 26th and to our horror discovered the house in complete state of disrepair, kitchen half fitted, without sink, no hot water, loft left as it was before we left except for the fitted flooring, no flooring downstairs, no washing machine.

That weekend we tried to get him to come to our house to at least get the hot water....but of course he didn't care and never turned up.

We tried to negotiate for him to come back and he agreed to pay another contractor to finish the house.

He came back for the total of two days (10am to 2pm) to install the flooring downstairs and fit tiles on my porch (a job that he offered to do) and then was never seen again, blocked our numbers and failed to respond to any correspondence.

My two neighbours had a quote from him, so I immediately invited both families to look at the state of my house and to warn them, but it was too late...they had already given him 13.000 pounds each!

So John then started works across my road, my neighbour, knowing how he behaved with us and had seen the quality of his work, sent him his way after he asked for more money two weeks into the job.

Works at my other neighbours house never started and money were never returned.
In an email sent from John Lincoln to my neighbour, John claims that he was forced to close down his company  because of "slander" from my part and my neighbour refusal to give him more money.

By "Slander" John Lincoln means my review on Trust Pilot and Yell.

But slander definition is "a malicious, false, and defamatory statement or report"

As far as I am concerned I described what he has done to my house and how he has behaved.

We then discovered that John Lincoln had changed his name from John Palmer after appearing on the program Cowboy Builders....twice!

After a brief research on the web I discovered that he had  reviews on mybuilder.com too! Describing the exact same pattern of behaviour and the same excuses…dating as far as 2008.

Just take a look for yourself...www.mybuilder.com

The new contractor (AS Building & Property Maintenance) started to find major faults with the plumbing, draining, electrics, and structure of the loft floor, after weeks of correcting what John Lincoln poor quality works we finally run our of money and couldn't borrow anymore.

The state of my home as John left was the below: 

• incomplete loft, no doors and no ensuite no lighting or sockets, no extractor fan

• All water damaged bedroom ceilings plastered but not painted

• flooring in the loft wrongly supported by jiffy hangers nailed with 4 felt nails (yes...FELT NAILS!!)  and no noggins installed and feels unstable

• Roofing finishes poorly executed and missing tiles replaced with felt

• Fascias and rainwater drainage incomplete

• Exposed timbers on the roof structure and uneven roof hanging

• Soil stack and plumbing for ensuite not completed
• Plasterboard in loft landing partially completed, no electrics completed 

• en suite not plumbed in, no pipes installed for radiators or any bathrooms pieces.
• electrics incomplete in both loft, ensuite, landing 1st floor, landing 2nd floor 

• The stairwell incomplete and miss measured with gaps left on the sides and uneven landing.

• Kitchen half installed with no kitchen highland or sink, the drainage to the sink at a wrong angle and not sealed

• washing machine plumbed into the soil stack by drilling a hole  into it and leaking sewage water

• No toilet under stairs

• Distribution board with wires for cooker "stuck in" and boiler plugged into a socket 

• flooring partially done in the kitchen (not installed under units as we agreed)

• no extractor fan in the chimney stack

• no electrics had been done and live wires hanging in the ceiling and under the kitchen floor.
• Kitchen units and bathroom mirror damaged

And the list goes on…

In 16 days John had been at our property a total of 4 days as witnessed by my neighbours.

After he blocked us he sent an email to my husband claiming that I denied him access…an excuse that often comes up in the reviews.

He will of course deny all this, like he has done to dozen or more out there.

He will set up another bogus company, perhaps change his name again, conn someone else, play the part and ruin another property.

THANKFULLY HIS FACE WILL REMAIN THE SAME

Below there are only few of the pictures I have taken during this ordeal, please bare with me while I update the rest and upload the video of our return home.