A loft conversion company in Surrey/SW London that won't drive me barmy?

[LoftyHeightsSurrey]

Thanks to Mumsnet I think we just had a narrow escape as we were about to sign a contract with Surrey lofts. I caught this thread just in time

www.mumsnet.com/talk/local/3335184-Surrey-Lofts
So, most of the loft conversion and building companies we've contacted for quote haven't even replied, one put in a vague quote (total price, no details), on said they'd build the dormer, put a staircase in and then we could worry about the layout etc. and then there was Surrey Loft who appeared quite convincing.
Right now I am completely frustrated with the whole thing. Is there a loft conversion company in the SW London/Surrey area that Mumsnetters can recommend? One that replies to messages would be a start.

We used altitude lofts two years ago - did a great job, super reliable. Not the cheapest but not the priciest either.

Have you tried Plus Rooms? Everyone I know who's used them speaks very highly of them.

@LoftyHeightsSurrey ah yikes, was this a guy called Paul? We had "Surrey Loft Installations" round but looking at his website, it's just surrey lofts

Did you find anyone in the end?

We used MoreSpace earlier this year in SW London for our loft and were happy with them

Touchstone lofts. They 💯 drove us barny but the end product is fantastic.

If I owned a loft conversion company I'd reply to threads like this.

Hi all. Just wanted to warn anyone who is thinking about using Touchstone Lofts for a loft conversion. We had a truly horrendous experience with the owner, he took a deposit of £10,000, we decided not to go ahead with the works after he had started to quote drastically different figures. When asking for a refund (as no actual work had even begun on our house) he claimed he would be willing to give some of the deposit back, after waiting and repeatedly asking for the money back he completely ignored us. I was then in contact with other previous customers of this company and their experiences were even worse than ours. Poor workmanship, unfinished work and threatening customers for money in cash. Please avoid Touchstone Lofts and go with someone more reputable.

Avoid more than lofts like the plague

Definitely avoid Touchstone lofts. We went with them, falling for their “award winning” company thinking that by paying extra we would be getting quality and getting a stress free service - I couldn’t have been more wrong. The owner, Paul Johan (and the person doing the admin who calls herself “Sarah McIntyre” but in fact his wife, Vaishali Johal), is very keen to have everything is paid in cash (you have to pay his subcontractors directly) so he avoids paying tax (but don’t expect a reduction in cost for this) and he’ll get you to pay the majority of the money at the start of the job and then at the end when there’s all the finishing to do, he’s long gone and onto his next job to get more cash and can’t be bothered with your job anymore. During the job, he’ll try and charge your extortionate amounts for what he’ll say is an “extra” which with other companies are standard things (eg to be compliant with going up a floor, you need fire doors on the other floors - that’ll will be extra with him and his pricing for a door will be double the cost of the door plus labour and then VAT). Our loft conversion took over a year and by the end even our neighbours were fed up and unhappy with us as a result. Even now, we haven’t had our completion certificates as he’s saying these are “extra” and wanting a further £1000 despite this having been agreed from the outset (he’s claiming in the contract that him “instructing” the company for the completion certificate doesn’t mean it’s included in the cost!). And the quality of the work has been substandard - we have a sliding door that doesn’t slide (when it slides the paint gets taken off because it hasn’t been fitted properly) and a whole load of damage to the rest of our house (patio tiles smashed by the scaffolders being careless when dismantling the scaffolding, downstairs toilet broken, water leak into our kitchen on the ground floor with a light left hanging loose from the ceiling, our security alarm system broken, tv aerial broken - none of which he has paid for repair nor repaired by him). His company has excellent reviews on Google and trust pilot, but that’s because he gets friends/family and his workers to post on there! Any posts which are negative, he’ll claim he doesn’t know who they are and that they aren my his customers, so will get the negative reviews taken off saying they are “spam”. You’ll find a Facebook page and YouTube channel about his company which very much reflects the reality. Please, please avoid!