Asbestos Wrongly Removed - Legal Help

AKAEKB_2

We are lucky enough to own a small building that we inherited a couple of years ago. We are unlucky in that the tennant left in February and owed 6 months rent that we aren't going to see.

I getting the building ready for renting again we have had to use all our savings as well as borrowing money from a family member.

I had an asbestos survey done while we had the builders in. My builder called to say that the asbestos guy had told him that there was asbestos in very back of the building (called the coffin as it's 6ft by 10ft), through the little door. I said that was ok and just close it off and don't do anything back there. I asked if there was anymore asbestos in the building and he said the guy had said it was just in the ceiling and it was the stable sort (breathed a sigh of relief) So he carried on working in the rest of the building.

When I get the Asbestos Report through, it shows asbestos in the main part of the building, under a pile of rubbish. A pile of rubbish my builder had cleared away and taken off to the dump. To me its a picture of brown dirt, the same brown dirt in the 'coffin'.

So who is at fault and what the hell do I do. We have no more money! Are we at fault? Is the asbestos guy at fault for no having shown my builder something that he though was enough of a risk to test and photograph? And who is at fault for the disposal? In all this I didn't recieve a call from the Asbestos company to tell me personally of the risk and he knew my builder was in there doing work.

Would be really grateful for any help. Especially if you happen to know the law. We are currently trying to sell.

System

I would say that the initial fault was with you. You had a suspicion of asbestos being present but allowed building work to continue before the results of the survey were known. You also now have a liability to your builder by putting him at risk unnecessarily due to your haste.