Slow, expensive and dishonest
The TLDR: LucKey are not a reputable company; the work was completed to varying levels of quality; very slowly; and they tried to overcharge me at every single opportunity.
I had several jobs that needed fixing so I arranged for LucKey to come to inspect. Three weeks later I still hadn’t received a quote, so had to prompt the company for it. Nonetheless, the initial quote when it did arrive seemed reasonable, about €35k’s worth of work, excl tax. However, the quote itself was vague and ambiguous, lacking the sort of detail one might expect about the exact work to be done. As you can read below, this caused problems at the end of the job.
I was keen to use this company since my Dutch is not great and I thought it would be best to work with someone with whom there would be no language barrier. LucKey advertise themselves in outlets like Dutchnews.nl promoting their ability to converse in English, ideal for expats. As I found out, this turned out to be false advertising. Although their project manager spoke English, all of their work crew are Russian and can’t speak English or Dutch. The project manager turned out to be absent nearly all of the time anyway, and regularly ignored my messages unless it suited him.
The work proceeded as planned, but very slowly.
I was told it would take 2 weeks to re-tile my very small WC (approx. 1m x 2.5m). It ended up taking 3 full weeks. There was a complication with dampness on the external wall of the WC, but the additional work took only 1 day to complete, so was not a valid excuse for the delay. The crew sat around a lot. They used my utility room for storage of their equipment, so the slow pace was quite inconvenient. The final result was good, but not great. There are imperfections and the crew left stains from careless use of silicon and grout on several parts of the tiling, including right inside the door, which is quite noticeable. They tried to fix these stains, but not very effectively.
I was told it would take 3 days to complete a simple closet for my gas boiler alongside an adjoining countertop. It took 6 or 7 days. The finished result was okay, I was quite happy at first, but realised that the internal cross-beam of the cabinet was placed in a way that would not allow the front panel of the boiler to be removed. Their solution: they simply cut out 2 thirds of that cross beam, which looks very ugly.
They also repaired some damaged plasterwork behind which ran the exhaust flue for the boiler. I had originally asked them to replace the flue and the boiler, but they quoted me an outrageous amount for the installation, almost €3k on top of the price of the boiler, and I was informed that I would have to source both the boiler and the flue pipe myself. In the end, I used a reputable CV Ketel installer who charged a minimal fee for installation and provided the new flue-pipe for free. LucKey then tried to charge me €80 to apply some sealant to the outlet pipe for the washing machine. I did it myself instead.
The final stage of the initial work (about a third of the total work quoted) involved re-plastering and painting the outside of the external wall of the WC, and half of another external wall (about 3m x 2.5m in total). They decided to paint all of the second wall surface, an additional 1.5m in width, instead of just half as agreed. They then tried to charge me an addition €500 for this additional painting that I had not agreed to. They had also somehow punched 2 big holes in the new external plaster and filled them with silicon!
I refused to pay the additional €500, but was eager to get them off my property, so agreed to pay an additional €200 as a compromise, on the condition that I didn't ask them to come back to fix the cabinet and external plaster.
I just don't understand this lack of professionalism, given that they could have received a lot more work from me if they had been fair and honest.
My recommendation: stay the hell away from this company!