Refresh Renovations - South West London - Saleem Jalil

Positive: Professionalism, Responsiveness Services: Project management, Design, Home extension services, Custom home design, Home building
Mar 5th, 2023

Positive: Professionalism, Responsiveness Service: Design
Dec 21st, 2022

The company is untrustworthy and constantly lies. You can see the response to one of the other reviews in which my name is mentioned. That is why I decided to respond to them and give them the appropriate, one star, rating. Let's address their response. The fact that the pictures do not represent the accurate state of the bathroom is false. According to Saleem and his team the bathroom was completed at this stage and they requested payment for the end of the 2nd fix. In order to fix any outstanding issues they requested a "snagging list" and didn't give any deadlines at all. They later admitted that the bathroom was not finished, but still requested the money upfront before fixing the issues. For example, the dangling cables from the socket are what they consider to be the end of the 2nd fix. At the time they requested the payment for the end of the 2nd fix the underfloor heating wasn't even working properly and couldn't be turned on! I had to spend thousands of pounds to get it to the state it was supposed to be in and to hire a solicitor to deal with them. I filed a complaint with the Federation of Master Builders but FMB did not do any follow-up with me. Therefore I didn't supply any documents to them except for the text of the initial complaint. So saying that both sides supplied documentation is also a lie. They seem to have made their decision based on whatever Marie and Vincent Smith told them (which, again, as shown in this review, could very well be lies). FMB only took a look at the complaint about the head office since Saleem's local office is not part of FMB. Therefore any decision they made is irrelevant to this profile where the response to the review appeared. The local office really did throw a fit like a 5 year old after the contract was terminated and this is documented with Marie Smith's email to me which is so bizarre that I'm amazed she decided to send it to me. She never contacted me ever again, even though I asked her questions in the response. During the very first phone call with Marie Smith, upon hearing that I have a foreign accent, Marie told me that my issues with the project may be because "something is literally lost in translation". I'll let you decide if this is a xenophobic remark or not. Regarding the statement about communication, this is what Refresh Renovation had to say, themselves, about communication with Saleem and his team: "We do consider that some of the written communications documented fall short of the high standards we expect." Despite saying that they repeatedly refused to apologise for it, insisting on monetary compensation instead of an apology. Furthermore, during the conflict resolution, I was threatened with court action, insurer claims (again, very bizarre) and that my email will be read by their legal team and they will take appropriate action. It's very weird that Saleem would threaten court action because his other company, according to TrustOnline UK gov search, was ordered to pay a claim made through small claims court in a different case. Additionally, when tools were returned back to Saleem he claimed that he didn't know me and didn't know about any bathroom renovation project at all. To give them some credit, the head office indeed grew from 2 people in 2020 to 6 in 2021 (according to Companies House data). My bad. One can only hope that they also expanded the pool of last names used in their organisation. Finally, and in my view most importantly, they removed Saleem's employee (Sam Hamdan) 5-star review recently. I include it in the picture as a proof that this company cannot be trusted because it writes its own fake 5-star reviews. They even seem to have removed their Facebook reviews website. Before they removed it, it had a review which said that they don't pay their contractors. I think this all proves the lack of trustworthiness. Again, their response seems to be irrelevant, because this is a review of Saleem's office. Services: Remodeling, Furniture assembly, Plumbing fixture installation, Tile work replacement, General plumbing services, Flooring, Demolition, Project management, Electrical work, Design, Tile work installation, Drywall installation, Home renovations, Install flooring, Paint indoors
Dec 24th, 2021

Due to a massive water leak, we had to completely re-do our dining room. The ceiling had collapsed, the mould was everywhere, the electrical system was damaged. The team changed the floor joists, the floor itself, re-plastered the walls, put insulation between the floors, brought the electrical system to standard, changed the tiles and painted. The room is now finished and its just beautiful. Its every visitors favourite room! Services: Flooring, Interior design, Project management, Electrical work, Design, Tile work installation, Architectural design services, Repair flooring, Install flooring, Concrete pouring
Nov 26th, 2021

This is the most dishonest, incompetent and unprofessional renovation company I've ever encountered, especially "director" Saleem Jalil. Stay away from them. If you don't have a time to read through this review just take a look at the pictures done at the "end of 2nd fix" (so they claimed). Take a look at other five star reviews as well - at least one of them is written by Saleem's employee (EDIT: quite predictably they have removed Sam's review after I posted mine so I've included screenshot of that review in the pictures). During the first meetings they were talking about how they will prepare this detailed cost report, detailed drawings and everything will be done on time without a need for additional visits. All of this, as many other things they said, was a lie. The cost report contains items which are then substituted for cheaper ones. They still demand the payment for the more expensive ones though, and when this is pointed out they resort to abusive language. The drawings are just "concept drawings" and, to quote one of the employees, "the bathroom always looks different than the drawings". What they don't tell is the reason why the drawings look different - in this case they supposedly forgot to check how wide the toilet is. In reality they didn't want to move the pipes for the sink to the new place. They also could not admit to any delays. They claimed everything will be done on time through the project. This resulted in us moving in to a house without running water or heating in the middle of the pandemic. We had to find place to live on the spot for the same night, because Saleem lied that the project will be finished and didn't even bother to pick up the phone when we called. You may think that you have a safeguard of contacting the head office. However, the "Refresh Renovations Head Office" is a fancy name for two people with the same last name (Smith). They started with a thinly veiled xenophobic remark about us having a foreign accent and advised us to not put anything in writing. After some convincing they tried to "solve" the conflict. Their "solution" was to pay most of the remaining project cost upfront and then Saleem and his team will continue the work they were contracted to do at some point in the future, without giving any deadline. During this whole conflict resolution process they lied through their teeth that they used the same parts as in the cost report. Fortunately we had pictures of boxes, shipping notices and the products. They were clearly cheaper and of lower quality. Finally, at the end, the contract was terminated. Following the termination they threw a fit like a 5 year old and they refused to clean up the tools and refused to send us invoices for the parts they bought. Both Smiths from the head office supported them in throwing a tantrum. Stay away from them. Go with someone honest who knows what they are doing. Update with regards to the response: Federation of Master Builders has not contacted any of us for any evidence, documents or even comments so what the response states is a pure lie. FMB said this about the comment below: "Our internal monitoring process is confidential, and we are unable to give you details on any outcomes." So make of that "investigation" what you will. As for when the pictures were taken that's very obviously and provably a lie too. The pictures were taken after, to quote their own email, "all second fix items made available have been fitted" and their teams went dark and didn't show up or respond for a week. They also insisted that there's nothing wrong with the shower at all. Services: Project management, Design, Paint indoors
Dec 7th, 2021