Another thread on bathroom fittings

[Jude1234]

I am not self building like the majority on this forum.  We have a main contractor that is doing everything as me and OH are useless at anything DIY. The contractor provided a quote with PC sums for flooring,  tiles, kitchen and bathrooms.  The PC sum for bathroom was just over  £17000 ( for main,  2 ensuite and downstairs loo) . We are now coming to choose and they suggested going to City Plumbing.  

 

In the bathroom showroom they have been really helpful and have designed them for us and given us quotes. They are well within the PC sum. However, as I found last night, I can still get some items cheaper.  

 

Anyway the purpose of this thread is to get recommendations of makes for items. I am not bothered about the make really we just want kit that works well , looks good and will last without little or no maintenance.  So any advice of which make to go for  (or avoid). For starters are Hudson Reed good quality? 

[Nickfromwales]

City plumbing are very expensive on any tidy brand of bathroom ware. I have NEVER been able to use them and I have an account there. . 

Ask for the materials budget figure and procure direct, you'll save 4 figures. 

HR are a good brand, around the same as Vado. Middle of the road on quality ( which is ample and come with good warranty ) and plenty good enough. 

For the 4 rooms I'd order from Megabad and have the Grohe / HansGrohe stuff for the same money. 

You need to focus on this and not be steered by the builder . 

[Barney12]

+1 for Megabad. Its thanks to this forum that I knew of their existence.

 

I've ordered all my Villeroy and Boch sanitary ware and all my HansGrohe mixers, showers, taps etc from them. Saved an absolute fortune compared to UK prices.

As an example: The Subway 2.0 wall hung toilet was nearly £500 from the local V&B showroom in Devon. Online UK prices are aprox £350.00. The EXACT same item from Megabad was just over £200!!

 

https://www.megabad.com/hersteller-villeroy-boch-subway-2-wc-a-182924.htm

 

I also ordered a few items in their own brand range Kronebach. https://www.megabad.com/kronenbach-k-117322.htm

The quality of the items was first class.

 

Packing and Delivery is expensive (mine was close to £450 from memory) but if you're ordering for 3 rooms you'll save a fortune!

 

Just do the tour of the shiny showrooms, choose what you want and buy from Megabad. I believe others have used Skybad with equally good experiences.

 

 

[Barney12]

P.S. Use the Google Chrome browser and set it to automatically translate the Megabad site from German to English.

Works perfectly.

[ragg987]

£17k is a lot to allow for 3 bathrooms and toilet, you can definitely get good prices by going to Megabad - their pricing structure means you can earn up to 10% discount on their already cheap prices if you hit certain amounts.

 

In our case, I spent £13k on 3 bathrooms and one toilet, delivered to UK. I was able to reclaim VAT off that as well, so nett was less than £11k. This was for some higher-end supplies - Bette baths and showers, Hansgrohe taps and valves, Villeroy toilets, hanging frames for toilets etc. Price included most of the accessories that are affixed - e.g. towel hooks and rings, soap holders, toilet brushes, shower screens, fixing accessories etc - I pretty much went to town there.

 

Having said that, I did not check if there was a way to save more money by buying different brands. I stuck with the ones I knew have a good reputation which narrowed my choice, someone in the know may be able to point to cheaper brands that perform well.

[Dreadnaught]

22 minutes ago, ragg987 said:

I was able to reclaim VAT off that as well

 

That's interesting. So the UK authorities refunded Austrian VAT? Out of interest, did you highlight the foreign VAT especially in your VAT claim to HMRC?

 

(I checked online and Austrian VAT happens to be 20% too but if the purchase had been from Germany, for example, the rate and presumably the reclaim would have been 19%.)

 

 

[Jude1234]

Thanks for the replies.  I was going to ask about reclaiming the VAT. Just a bit worried about ordering when I don't know what brands are high quality and which aren't.  But looks like Hodson reed, Bette, Hansgrohe, Villeroy are good makes

[ragg987]

Megabad applied the UK rate of 20% instead of the German rate of 19% - I assume they had to apply the rate of country being sold to. HMRC will refund EU VAT - I attached the EU invoice, in Euros, plus a screen print from oanda.com showing the equivalent GBP at invoice date. The VAT percent applied is irrelevant for the refund form - it asks for the amount of VAT.

[Dreadnaught]

Thank you. Very interesting. So the seller used the MOSS-style approach for VAT, which I had thought only applied to digital service, and applied UK VAT. Intriguing!

 

I wonder if all foreign sellers do that or some try to apply their local VAT rate.

 

3 minutes ago, ragg987 said:

plus a screen print from oanda.com showing the equivalent GBP at invoice date

 

Instead I wonder if you could have just enclosed a copy of your bank/credit card statement for the purchase showing the GBP equivalent you actually paid. That's what we tend to do in another context. Just a thought.

[Dreadnaught]

This seems to be relevant for this discussion: https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/individuals/buying-goods-services-online-personal-use/buying-goods/buying-goods-online-coming-from-within-eu-union_en

 

Summary: if the seller is above a certain low threshold for cross-border sales the seller can choose to apply the VAT rate of the destination country.

 

Interestingly the note adds: "There will be many cases when the seller will not inform you of the applicable VAT rate." And "If the seller is required by the national regulation to issue an invoice, you will have the information about the VAT rate that has been applied."

 

Overall it sounds to me like we self-builders should be checking VAT arrangements with an EU seller before ordering. As for after Brexit, I imagine its anyone's guess.

[ragg987]

1 minute ago, Dreadnaught said:

Instead I wonder if you could have just enclosed a copy of your bank/credit card statement for the purchase showing the GBP equivalent you actually paid.

Maybe. The invoice date is very different from the payment date, so this can be material given the volatility of the GBP. Invoice is only issued on despatch, whereas payment is on order. In our case there was about 3 months between these events as we had special order on the Bette baths - factory drilling for taps.

 

On my other European purchases, most vendors charged the UK rate of VAT and one charged the local rate. Not sure why, it makes no difference in the end.

[Dreadnaught]

3 minutes ago, ragg987 said:

Maybe. The invoice date is very different from the payment date, so this can be material given the volatility of the GBP. Invoice is only issued on despatch, whereas payment is on order. In our case there was about 3 months between these events as we had special order on the Bette baths - factory drilling for taps.

 

 

Very interesting. A € invoice as you mentioned before, so you carried FX risk for about 3-months on £13,000. Not to be sniffed at in these volatile times I suppose. You could have fixed it if you had wanted. Did it cross your mind?

[ragg987]

Yes. It worked in my favour this time, so I let it be. The FX risk is limited to 20% of the £13k - given the sigificant savings (approx half price compared to UK purchases) this seemed insignificant.

[Jude1234]

To bring back to topic if I may any other brands that are recommended perhaps German ones in case I do order from Megabad. 

 

Also for the taps etc will theycomply with BuildingRegs wrt water usag