Franklin Windows Ltd

Where to start with Franklin. After searching the market for a supplier of composite windows for a big job on my house I plumped for Franklins, I met up with Josh at an exhibition at the NEC and all seemed to be good. They were members of the DGCOS whch provided good guarantees and also FENSA registered so all checked out. I was after a French door and a large triple glazed aluminium clad conservatory to replace the softwood one in my home. Order was place in April 2014 for the French door to be fitted first followed by the conservatory in the autumn. Total cost £36k. I had to pay £9k up front and a further £9k when Franklin confirmed that they had placed the order with suppliers for the conservatory. These payments were duly made by July 14. The French Door got installed at the beginning of August on the second attempt after Franklin initialy failed to turn up on the planned date. When they did install it, they missed out a filer piece to the top of the door, the installers started touching up the inside of th edoor with paint and overpainted the seals and then it turned out that neither the locks of the threshold strip were thermally broken and therefore on cold days condensation forms on the inside of the door. Franklin promised to rectify these issues when the conservatory got fitted. In September Franklin contacted me to ask for the final stage payment as he claimed he was ready to install the conservatory. He set a start date of the 3rd November and I paid him £8k on the 6th October. When I didn't hear anything further from Franklin in the run up to 3rd November I got a bit suspicious so googled Franklin windows to find that on the 7th Ocober he had gone into administration - I contacted him and was told it would all be OK he had bought back the company and would finish the job. On 3 occasions he told me he had everything needed to complete the job and just needed to arrange a crane - this never happened and in November I was contacted by the supplier to say that they had repossessed the doors/windows as they had not been paid since the initial deposit (they were owed £12k). I then found out that Franklins did not have the roof either and had not paid for it. I contacted DGCOS for support and they advised me that there were a number of other customers in the same position. Despite Franklin giving "personal guarantees" to the administrators that he would complete all exisiting contracts and signing an asset sale agreement that obliged him to complete all existing contracts no progress was being made. They advised me to write to Franklin giving notice to complete the job by a set time or to cancel the job - they would then invoke the guarantee. Notice was given and Franklin failed to respond. After a couple of weeks, in mid January Franklin did make contact again saying they were committment to completing the job. When asked for specific details on how they were going to do this Franklin failed to answer any questions, after further failed promises I served formal notice under the contract to complete the works within a 6 week period or cancel and return my deposits. The 6 week deadline has now passed and Franklin has neither completed the work nor refunded my money. I might just have been unlucky - would you want to take that chance??