Essexandlondonconstruction Anmeldelser 

The team did my basement extension in Leyton. Would 100% recommend. The end result was super impressive and I have tons of comments on it. I had a bespoke staircase built and fitted, fitted wardrobes, a window created, fittings like skirting, they covered electrics and additional plastering and decorating in other areas of the house. I have since used the team for elements of my bathroom renovation and other smaller works like a new front path/entrance area and garden upgrades. They are helpful, affordable and high quality. I have a planned kitchen extension that I am working with them on as well.

Am a building control surveyor, all projects with Essex and London Construction have been positive and I look forward to inspecting their sites as they are great to work with.

This company looks the part - experienced, professional, successful. In my experience? Total smoke and mirrors.

I had a really bad time with them and figured out too late how they reel people in. Bottom line is they’re cowboy builders, just slicker and more calculated than most. Not good people, and the work was awful.

If you look them up on Companies House it’s pretty revealing - they’re in the red, have only one employee, and their registered address in Putney is literally just a mailbox at Mail Boxes Etc. No actual connection to the business or where anyone involved actually lives or works. A rented mailbox in a fancy part of London raises some pretty obvious questions.

They say they do basement conversions but they don’t actually seem to do them - they just seem to subcontract to specialists like Basement Structures.

They’ll happily sign a proper building contract (JCT, RIBA) which makes them seem legit - but once they’re in your house, they just ignore it. And there’s not much you can do. I complained loads of times and got either silence or attitude back. Being talked down to in your own home about your own home isn’t okay, and no builder should behave like that.

They recently posted on Instagram about having availability to take on more work. A builder with genuinely happy customers doesn’t need to do that - the jobs just come in through word of mouth and positive online reviews.

Their Instagram looks busy and popular. The numbers say otherwise. Hypeauditor shows an engagement rate of just 0.67% and an account quality score of 12. Modash puts engagement at 0.61% and estimates around 10% of their followers are fake, with another 10% suspicious or likely bots. For an account their size that posts as often as they do, that’s really low engagement. A lot of the likes and comments also look like they’re coming from friends and family rather than actual customers or others in the industry.

Honestly I think the whole social media thing exists just to pass a quick Google check. It’s designed to make them look active and credible to someone who’s considering hiring them.

Don’t get caught out like I did. In my experience these aren’t professional builders - they’re professional conmen.

I’ve reported Essex and London Construction to Trading Standards, and I know others have too.

I also recently found out that Tara Taylor - one of the directors of the company - is a health and safety professional and works for Bristol City Council. She’s Head of Building Safety and Health and Safety Manager. It’s deeply disturbing to me that someone who treats her construction company’s client’s homes so poorly and unsafely is paid out of the public purse to be responsible for the property portfolio of Bristol City Council.

ELC also recently boasted about being in The RIBA Journal. They weren’t in The RIBA Journal, look it up. They’re referring to an interview with an architect they worked on a project with. No praise or credit is given to ELC as a company or to Marc Porter personally - the entire piece is about the architect’s design decisions. The one build-related comment is actually a pointed one aimed at Marc Porter and ELC - the architect describes needing “diligent oversight… especially when guiding builders prone to improvisation.” That says so much about them and how they operate. Pay attention to information like this before deciding whether to trust them with your home.

I’m in touch with others who’ve had a bad experience with this company - it’s like a strange support group you never expected or want to be a part of. Search ‘Essex and London Construction’, ‘Marc Porter’ and ‘Tara Taylor’ on Facebook - you’ll get the real sense of who they and this company are. Their own marketing and website claims shouldn’t be believed.

The worst experience we have ever had with a company was with Essex and London Construction (ELC) which is owned and run by Marc Porter and Tara Jane Taylor, a husband-and-wife team.

If I could give zero stars for this review I would, but 1 is the minimum possible in order to write a review.

ELC is capable of good work and providing a good service to clients. We spoke to former clients before appointing ELC and visited some of their projects. We also spoke to clients who had projects running concurrently with ours who were happy with ELC.

Ms Taylor serves as the Managing Director and Health and Safety Manager of ELC. She has professional qualifications and accreditations relevant to the construction industry and health and safety, which is unusual for a UK domestic construction company. She has also worked, and still works, for various local authorities throughout the UK in significant compliance, health and safety, Principal Designer and building safety roles. Her credentials and experience was a key factor in why we chose ELC to significantly alter and improve our home.

Distressingly, ELC did not improve our home as the work they completed was excessively substandard, they damaged our property in extensive and severe ways (including structurally) and they did not complete the project. By the time they fully abandoned the project it had already overrun by 3 months.

We had agreed with ELC that we would move out of our home for 8 weeks to enable the build and they agreed to have it sufficiently ready for us to move back into after 8 weeks. However, we weren’t able to move back into our home for 5 months due to ELC not progressing the project and constantly having to correct their own serious mistakes. We had a baby at the time so it was especially disruptive to us.

ELC used incompetent and/or inexperienced workers on our project. They also did not supervise the workers or project manage the build even though we were paying ELC a fee to project manage.

During the build we discovered ELC had too many significant projects on at once and could not manage them all. Ms Taylor was also the designated health and safety manager for our project but did not attend site at all, nor did she otherwise ensure that health and safety regulations were complied with (which they were not).

ELC did not take care of our property throughout the build, they did not follow plans or instructions correctly (including structural plans), they did not comply with our contract with them and they excessively cut corners (including structurally, requiring significant and extensive remediation by other contractors).

ELC’s workmanship was extremely poor, they made an excessive number of significant mistakes (including structural) and they did not undertake the works in a safe, careful, compliant or structurally sound way which caused extensive structural and other damage to our property.

The liability of ELC for structural and other damage to our property, as well as substandard work and defects, has been confirmed by experts and other evidence. ELC are fully aware of their liability but they refuse to take responsibility for it or engage with us to resolve, remediate and/or compensate us for the issues and damage they have caused.

It was not just us as homeowners who were mistreated by ELC on the project at our property. For example, ELC did not pay subcontractors for their completed work. ELC also overcharged us for the work of subcontractors.

There were many other serious issues - too many to set out in an online review.

In our experience the owners and workers of ELC are dishonest, rude, abusive and aggressive.

Unfortunately we now know from other previous clients of ELC that our experience with ELC was not unusual - we are one of many clients who have had a severely negative and distressing experience with them.

When challenged during the build about incorrect or poor workmanship, ELC did not act as a professional building company would and try to amicably resolve issues. Instead, they usually ignored issues and evidence, denied responsibility or tried to blame others. On many occasions they were abusive towards us and our advisers.

Do not be deceived by the pictures of high-end, magazine-worthy work that ELC post on their social media accounts because they are not representative of many of the projects they deliver (a significant number of which they never complete).

Also do not be taken in by how friendly, helpful and charming they can seem - they won’t necessarily have any respect or regard for you or your property and they don’t care about the disruption, distress, stress and devastation they inflict upon clients who they decide to take advantage of.

We wish we hadn’t trusted ELC with our family home and we strongly advise others not to.