Small claims advice needed

Naughtynat

We had someone in to do some plastering in our home. The finish was awful. Lumps, bumps and rough. We spoke to the plasterer and he agreed to come back and rectify the job. After lots of messing us about he finally came back and started the prep. He was then due to come back the following day to start the re-plastering. He then gave us excuse after excuse as to why he couldn't come. We told him that we couldn't go on with out house in the state it is in and that we wanted a refund from him so that we could get someone else in to do the work. He came to the house to pick up his stuff and told us that he had some work on and that he would pay us back within a week. He actually signed a statement confirming he would pay us within a week. Needless to say we have received no money. We are now looking at taking him to small claims court for the money paid for him to do the job together with the cost of the materials that we bought for him to do the job. Can we also add the cost of us having someone else in to rectify the job to our claim?

OlliesDad

If you are reclaiming the entire amount paid to the guy you can't also claim the cost for another person doing it. Otherwise you would have had the plastering done completely free.

Naughtynat

Thanks OlliesDad. We have now heard through the grapevine that this bloke has said that his work was poor because of our prep work! All we had to do was PVA the walls! Surely if our prep was wrong (which it wasn't as we followed the advice of other plasterers) he shouldn't have carried on with the job. The plaster has stuck to the walls fine, it is the finish which is appalling!