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It is all about who you know...
Once you have bought your property in France you may need to carry
out building works to a greater or lesser degree. If you are resident
and know what you are doing - fine. If we can help point you in
the direction of good tradesmen that we know, we are very happy
to do so and, naturally, would not charge you for "picking
our brains" and raiding our address book. Nor will we take
a commission from them, if you subsequently use any of our contacts.
This just inflates the price you pay and rewards us for doing nothing.
First you need a price...
Whatever you intend doing, you need to know three things... how
much will it cost, how long will it take and when will the work
start. If you are not here, you will find it extremely difficult
to get a local tradesman to provide quotes. Daft I know, but it
is just the way it is here, believe me we know, we have been through
it. We will brief, chase, bully and wheedle quotes from the various
tradesmen that your project requires, presenting you with the individual
"Devis" (quotations) for you to sign in one package
together with our agreed fee for co-ordinating this estimation process,
based upon € 25 per hour. After that, you can either commence
the project controlling it yourself, or you can continue to employ
us as managers for the actual project. See below.
Projects need managing...
Whether the work entails putting in a fosse septique, installing
a swimming pool, building an extension or just decorating, the trades
involved need organising, cajoling and supervising. Someone has
to control the flow of materiel, manage the costings and time schedule.
That person has to understand the processes involved and must be
on site daily. The different trades need to commit to a start date
and be made to keep to their timings. For if you are dealing with
more than one trade, the electrician, for instance, needs to be
in before the plasterer, the plasterer before the kitchen fitter
etc. If one goes AWOL on the appointed day, the others will be delayed.
A big delay, could mean losing tradesmen to another job. Then it
is start again time! If you will be absent during this build process,
you cannot control all this remotely. You will need a project manager.
We will be happy to discuss your project with you and give you
a detailed estimate of costs, pulling in all the costing elements
(from architect to final clean and sign-off day) into one 'final
price' document. From there we will prepare a schedule of works
co-ordinating all the trades in the right sequence and purchase
of materials at the right time and, well... we will just get on
with it, being on site daily to supervise and correct snags. Our
fee is calculated either as a percentage of the overall cost of
your project, if a large one or as a daily fee, for small works.
If we do our job right, the subsequent saving in preventing over-inflated
estimates, materiel "losses" and time wasting, will probably
more than pay for our services.
Knowledge is everything...
We will keep you fully informed of progress and will never
be unavailable to you. We will always return your calls and attend
to your e-mails and promise to give you the facts... whether it
be good news or bad. In addition, we will also provide you with
a private section of our website where you will be able to view
a weekly project report together with photographs of the progressing
work, so that you can see for yourself how things are going.
If you will be an absent
owner for much of the year, please click this link for information
on our Property Management Services.
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