some legal advise please

scooby7

Dear All,
I appreciate if anyone can give advise to me. I got a large p shaped conservatory from the local company. The contract which I signed did not mention all the details (My fault). Since starting I had problems at last they finished the conservatory in 3 months time.
According to our contract-
1)The job should be finished in 3-4 weeks- took 3months
2)The measurements of the p extension is supposed to be 2.8 metres, however the builted one is only 2.5 metres.

So they agreed to lay down the flooring and decking (I bought the required material). However this is not in my contract or they havent given this in writing.

They completed the flooring and decking . The decking was layed awfully. Still some jobs regarding flooring (Skirting boards) pending. The rubbish is still on my driveway.

After calling them repeatedly, they say they cant do anymore job. They say If I want to go to court I dont stand anywhere because nothing is in writing.

What should I do now. Can I approach any small claims court regarding this.??
My main argument will be the completion time in the contract and the measurements they built. Do I have any chance??
9months since they started still not completed!
Please give me some suggestions please.

brownbake

Hopefully you haven't paid them yet? Judging by the tone of your message it seems you have.

Wrong move !!

scooby7

I took finance through the company. I signed the form after agreeing to lay down the flooring and decking. I havent paid to the finance compant though!
As I said its my fault to trust them.
Is there any scope for legal battle??

27col

I doubt that you can refuse to pay the finance company. Even if you got the finance through the conservatory company, they would not have financed it themselves.
I expect that you have got a separate loan contract with the finance people that does not depend on the job being done right.
There is always scope for a legal battle, but that will only profit some lawyer. Go to the trading standards people by all means, but if you do not have a water tight contract, there may not be much that they can do. If the time taken to do the job was a really serious feature, then the contract should have said that "time was of the essence". If it did not, then I suspect there is nothing to be done on that score. Perhaps someone with some legal experience could provide some guidance.

baldelectrician

The finance company are jointly and severally liable for the work.

McAzrael

The one arguement that will almost certainly fail is the time one. Although they said they expected the job to finish on 3-4 weeks, this was probably not made a condition of the contract and so is at large (as 27col says, it is not of the essence). In any case, the works have varied which will also have made time at large. You can now make time of the essence by giving them notice, but I am not sure what good it is going to do you.

Making a claim where there is a dispute over constuction work is not completely straight forward as the civil procedure rules require that certain pre-claim protocols are followed, including meeting with the defendant to atempt to agree the nature of the dispute, that is, what exactly is in dispute. If the disputed amount is more than £5000 then the claim is very unlikely to be allocated to the small claims track. You don't appear to be unhappy with the conservatory base, frames or roof. You may find that the dispute boils down to the quality of the decking (which was not originally contracted for and the subsequent agreement my fail due to a lack of consideration) and the size. The court may consider 300mm to be a relatively minor breach, particularly if there is no specific reason why 2.8m was chosen as the dimension. (By the way, how are you measuring the 2.5m? The wall is likely to be 300mm thick.) You may find that your dispute is over a relatively small amount of money.

I'm sorry I am painting such a bleak picture, but I don't think it would be helpful to paint a rosy picture and tell you that a couple of cross letters are going to get you out of this mess.

As baldelectrician points out, the finance company is jointly and severally liable - jointly because their liability is not secondary to the conservatory company and severally because they are liable on their own. If they come looking for money it won't do any harm to fill them in on what is happening and remind them of this. In the meantime, I would suggest that you have a good hard think about how much of a loss it would be to you just to stop now. I don't mean you should give in, just consider exactly what you are fighting for. If you do decide to take legal action then you are going to need some proper advice from a solicitor. It won't be cheap, but then neither is a conservatory.

Whatever you decide to do next, your local trading standards department will want to know your story.

dreamypuma

baldelectrician wrote: »

The finance company are jointly and severally liable for the work.

Check out Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news/31/creditcards-31.htm

EliteHeat

McAzrael - excellent, informed post.