The Chartered Institute of Building 1 Arlington Square, Bracknell RG12 1WA

"I complained to the CIOB about one of their member builders, DoBuild Ltd, who had worked on my house just before they attained membership. A RICS surveyor said about their work: "Brickwork has been repointed in three different shades of mortar to an appalling standard." "The leadwork is extremely badly dressed...has been poorly cut... Renewal of leadwork is required... The lead should be replaced with lead which is correctly dressed in accordance with the Lead Sheet Associations recommendations" In general the surveyor concluded: "The standard of work and finishing is in places appalling". The word 'poor' appeared over 30 times in the report to describe their work. In addition these builders put a hoarding up in front of my house during construction that clearly displayed a 'Gold Award'. I was surprised to see this and after some research found that these awards are given out by In-House Research, a reputable customer service awards company. I contacted them and queried the award. The builders were given no such award and indeed In-House had sent a cease and desist letter to them. The builders had simply deliberately displayed a false award at my house. (see attached pictures) I sent this incontrovertible evidence to the CIOB but incredibly they said no member rules had been breached. Perhaps the incoming new president Sandi Rhys Jones will do something about the governance at the CIOB. From experience I would suggest that anyone looking for a builder should ignore their accreditations or trade memberships and ask for 3 verifiable references. [Thanks for your response, no I don't need any further clarification. You've already made it abundantly clear you will do nothing about a builder that behaves in this manner and therefore have no interest in raising the standards of the building trade in the UK. If the CIOB can't even do that then I don't know what your purpose is.]"

"My dealings with the CIOB were not ideal. I wanted to become a chartered member, and submitted all of my documents for review, but administrative error after administrative error meant 6 months later I still hadn't had a decision or much contact. You have to chase and chase and chase to get any information out of them regarding your application, and it's always the same "it will take us 8-12 weeks to tell you anything because of high demand" but when membership or assessment fees are due they will call or email every day. Very tiring when you're working full time. I eventually got frustrated with waiting and contacted them to cancel my application, to be told another review could be done in 2 weeks (after waiting 6 months I'm sure this would have been 8-12 weeks if I hadn't asked for a refund). Overall once cancellation was mentioned they communicated and dealt with the refund very quickly hence why the review is 2 stars and not 1. They're very difficult and time consuming to deal with when compared to similar organisations."