A great concern for anyone considering building their home in Turkey is finding a builder you can trust and who works to professional standards. Every on needing work on their home or looking to build from scratch fears the arrival of the ‘cowboy builder’. The likelihood of finding one seems higher when we build or renovate in a foreign country, where the language barrier and different building standards get in the way. However, there are a number of ways that you can protect yourself from the cowboys. Quest Turkey gives some valuable tips on how to ensure that you don’t get lassoed!
First Impressions
First impressions can be deceiving; you are in a foreign country and someone befriends you and tells you he is the man who can build your dream house. He may help you out for no charge on a small job and over a few glasses of Raki you fall prey to his charm and broken English. Just stop before you make a big mistake and ask yourself, ‘Does this man really look like a builder?’ If his hands are small and soft then he has not been working on a site – builders hands are calloused from all of the graft and the cement and plaster they handle. Take a look at his van and more to the point does he have one? If it is too clean it has not seen a building site. If it is on its last legs he isn’t earning enough to maintain it and is unlikely to take enough care on the finish of your home. Building work is a dirty job – there should be some evidence of its place on the site. Ask him how long he has been in the building trade and how he started out. Most builders start as brickies or carpenters for example and progress from there. Ask him how many men he employs to get a feel for the scale of his enterprise.
Checking Credentials
Before you down the next glass of Raki, arrange to meet your potential builder at his office or home address. Ask him for a business card or his phone number. Ask him what he is currently working on and whether you can inspect his work. Good builders are busy for most of the year so if he has no work on at the moment then alarm bells should start to ring. Ask him for references from others that he has worked for and make sure there is more than one - one house could have been built by anyone and could be owned by his best friend.
Questioning Former Clients
Question the people who have worked with this builder to determine their relationship to him – you need to be sure they are not part of his family. If they are foreigners like yourself all the better! The surest way to get a feel for any builder’s work is to look at plenty of jobs he has done and is working on. This will enable you to determine the quality especially on the finish and you will be able to converse with those he worked for to establish whether they were satisfied with the quality, whether he finished the job in time and how smoothly the financial transactions went. What do the houses look like? Does he have any idea of Western style? Remember if you are looking to construct something to Western standards you should expect to see houses built to this style otherwise you can rest assured that the builder you are talking to has no experience with this type of build.
Getting Recommendations
If the first or second builder you meet does not fit the bill then ask around for recommendations. Ask the architect who will draw up your plans or the real estate agent who sold you your land, then go through the same questioning procedure again to ensure that this person really is what he says he is.Do bear in mind that agents who recommend builders may do so because they are getting a financial commission to do this – this does not mean that the builder is not reputable, it just means that you still need to check them out for your own piece of mind. Another way to find a good builder is to literally knock on doors of properties that you like and ask for the builder’s contact details or to ask the local mayor.
Tricks of the Trade
Builders are full of tricks and this is fine if they are used to solve problems on your build. However many of these tricks are so common it doesn’t matter what country we live in or what language we speak they all still signal the same thing – a scam. One common trick is to provide in an irresistibly low estimate, but add costs on at every twist and turn in the job, leaving you paying twice as much as you originally expected. Do not accept estimates – make a fixed price and nothing less. The payment up front is another scam signalling the arrival of the invisible man – one who takes the money and is never heard of again. If you don’t have an architectural plan and schedule of work, which details of manufacturer’s names and products and materials, then you are leaving yourself wide open for additional costs, which ‘were not on the plan.’ The same applies if you continually change your mind about how you want things done and you can’t blame a builder who asks for more money because you have deviated from the plan. Avoid these costly mistakes!
Talking Business
If you like the work of a particular builder then it is time to talk money and contracts. If your builder can’t give you a price or is not happy about working to a contract then walk away. A building contract should be drawn up by a solicitor and should state a fixed price and a completion date with penalty payments for late delivery. A good contract must be fair to both parties and may involve stage payments to the builder when he reaches certain levels in the build. On no account should you pay anything up front and if it is under the guise of buying materials then walk away again, this could be a scam where you see absolutely nothing for your money. Think of this, would you walk into a pub back home and give someone you just met a thousand Euros?
Remember avoiding Butch Cassidy and his crew is easy providing you do some ground work and keep a healthy suspicion of the person you are about to hand over thousands of Euros to.
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