Buying a home in an adopted country can be a potential minefield, but help is now at hand for Polish people wanting to settle here in the UK.
By Andrea Dean
Although around 385,000 people left the UK in 2006 to live abroad - the highest number since records began - 565,000 came from overseas to live here. Over 70 per cent of these people are Polish citizens, and it's estimated that more than half a million Polish immigrants now live in Britain - a figure that's risen dramatically since Poland, along with seven other central and eastern European countries, joined the EU on 1 May 2004.
This influx of Polish workers includes highly skilled builders, bricklayers, carpenters and plasterers, who often have a pride in and commitment to their work that's second to none. More and more British homeowners are recognising these skills and employing teams of Polish contractors - rather than their British counterparts - to work on major building and renovation projects.
David Houlton hired a firm of Polish builders to renovate his Victorian home. Here's how he found the experience. 'The builders we used were obviously very busy with other jobs while they were working on our home, but they usually arrived when they said they would, worked, seemingly without a break all day long, and got the job done efficiently. Most of them did not speak English, so we had to liaise with the boss at the beginning of the day if he wasn't going to be there. The main thing I noticed was that most of the workers could turn their hand to anything - plastering, plumbing, electrics. You name it, they usually had more than one string to their bow.'
