Shoddy Building Work

strawberry_cupcake_2

Hi, I am currently in the process of taking the builder who built our porch to the small claims court for shoddy workmanship. In 2007 we bought a house and was told by our solicitor that the porch was going to need to be rebuilt as there was subsidence on it, but the sellers insurance would be paying out for it and the claim was going to be transferred over to us.

The Insurance company sent round someone to analyse the soil next to the porch and to see if there was anything to cause the porch to have subsidence, but it turned out that there was no probs with the soil and that the reason the porch was in disrepair was because it hadn't been constructed properly in the first place.

The insurance company wouldn't pay out, so the sellers paid us the £2,000 which would have been the excess on the insurance claim.

We found a local builder, explained what we needed doing and decided to accept his quote, he rebuilt our porch, this was in july 2007.

However, over the last few months we have noticed that the porch is once again coming away from the wall, there are large cracks where the porch walls are not attached to the house correctly, the floor has dropped and the door wont lock anymore because the floor has dropped and the lock has moved.

We tried phoning, writing, emailing the builder, and got no joy, then one day a couple of weeks back, his wife phoned, said that her husband is ill, and no longer works and told me she can't be bothered with our porch. The thing is, it is a family firm, and their son is still trading.

We have taken out a claim against them at the small claims court to get our money back, they are denying everything we say, they even said we knew that they wouldn't dig deep foundations and that it could fall down again! as if!

We contacted our solicitor, and she has provided us with copies of the quote, the invoice we paid, and the report from the people that did the soil testing to proove we are telling the truth.

Thanks for still reading this rather long drawn out post, but what I need to know is, what do you think our chances are for getting our money back?

Laz123

You will probably win in the small claims court, but that is not a guarantee you'll get your money. They can claim poverty or such like and maybe pay off the sum little by little.

I think it's worth it though. It won't cost you much and you can even do it online https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/csmco2/index.jsp

If anything it will put a CCJ against them and save other punters from their shoddy workmanship.