Any way to sort a useless bathroom fitter out?

Grimbal

We bought a bathroom from a local showroom who have approved fitters that they ask you to use. They promise a seamless, stress free experience where the whole job is project managed by this one bathroom fitter.

We have now had 5 weeks with no water upstairs and no functional toilet in the entire time. We have a room with no plumbed in sink, loo, shower or bath. The bathroom fitter is very rarely on site, and constantly promises that he'll "be there later today".

We've not been living at the property, but will be moving in this week - although without any bathroom facilities, I can't see how we'll be able to !

We're waiting on the bathroom showroom guys to give us a call back now, but I'm wondering what we do next? Payment to the fitter was cash in hand, so we have no contract to prove., so I don't even think that taking it somewhere like the small claims court would work.

Any ideas? I'm stressed out beyond belief & unbelievably angry with this useless guy! The town has a facebook wall that I know the showroom posts on, so I'm considering posting on there to warn others about this particular fitter. However, this is unlikely to get the money back that we've paid out for a non-existent service or compensate us for not being able to live in our own home !

:(:(

Jariya

Have you written to the place you bought the bathroom about the people they recommend?

I would place a call first followed by a letter detailing everything.

Grimbal

I called the showroom, then have followed that up with an email. Hopefully they'll respond tomorrow

Re payment: because this guy was the co-ordinator, he needed the cash to pay the other trades working for him. I know that he should have self funded, then got us to pay him back, but given that we were going through a reputable local bathroom supplier, we thought he'd be more reliable. We were also stuck: he was saying he couldn't/wouldn't carry on until he got more money, whilst we were saying we were unhappy to pay more. Hindsight is an easy thing to have !

phill99

I'm surprised that the showroom use fitters who expect everything up front. You wopuld expect to pay a deposit and then staged payments at identifiable points in the refurbishment.

You need to take this up with the showroom as it is their reputation that is being muddied.

Leif

That sounds appalling. I'd be shouting at the showroom people by now.

Grimbal

Yup, I agree, it just feels like they have washed their hands of this situation. They hopefully will call me back tomorrow to discuss this. We need a functional bathroom by Tuesday & there's so much still to do ! I guess I have to give them a chance to read the riot act to their approved fitter before I post my dissatisfaction on facebook!

I am so worried about having to move into a house with no loo or running water upstairs

Leif

This might sound rude or unhelpful, but I would never pay cash in hand without a receipt, and not all at the start either. If he is dishonest he can claim he has not been paid, and the showroom people are then stuck between a rock and a hard place. I would try your best to get a signed receipt from the 'work' man, where I use the term in the loosest sense.

Grimbal

we've paid 85% of final agreed price & we have:

a stripped out room (knocked thru 2 cupboards, made good), moved loft hatch, false wall for new door, replastered & tiled. This was all done within the first week and we thought this was the standard that he would continue throughout. He's got the bath up there with most of the cupboards & sorted out the waste pipe, but nothing is actually connected yet. All the parts are on site & have been for the last month when he's just consistently failed to turn up

He has to do:

connect shower, bath, loo & basin (& reconnect downstairs loo)
work surface
unit fronts
downlighters & extractor fan
lighting to plinths
dimmer switch for lights
hardboard/ply over floor

ETA: towelrail

The local independent place do have a good reputation around town & I'm hoping they're going to be outraged when I tell them how little of the job he has actually finished.

robert2011

Hi Grimbal,
Sorry to hear your plight, but all is not lost yet ! i assume you have this cowboys tel number ? if so get one of your friends to phone him ,get them to make up a story about they want a big job done by him , but first they want his address as they hear stories about cowboys in the area. If he gives his address ? go to his house with big bad boys to put pressure on him to give you your money back.
This system has a win rate of about 50% Good Luck !

Grimbal

andrew-b wrote: »

But urm how much have you paid in pounds rather than percentage? trying to establish if it's a reasonable amount or not. What's the standard of the work done so far?

Other thing that concerns me is there are electrical items on the list which are part P notifiable...whoever is doing those bits needs to belong to a relevant competent persons scheme such as NICEIC etc for it to be legal. So you need to check this too.

Oh sorry - total price for fitting was 4k (which was pretty much what the other 3 quotes came in on, so can only assume that this was reasonable for the amount of work needed). We've paid him 3.3k to date. The work that has been done is very good - the new wall is very neatly done, plastering over that and inside bathroom very good. Tiling excellent (contracted out), with spot on cutting out for pipes etc.

We have no problem with the standard of the work done - it all looks very well carried out, it's just the speed & broken promises (especially as we are due to move in so soon)

keystone

Who is your contract actually with?

A bathroom should be done in max 2 - 3 weeks.

Write and put your contractor on notice that you require the work to be completed within "n" days.

Cheers