Dodgy builders?

asm3k

I was speaking to my parents about some work we had done by a builder some years back. They agreed on removing the chimney in the living room and to improve the room for £5,000 but while they removed the chimney they damaged the walls which meant we needed the walls replastered etc and the bill ended up being £10,000. This sounds very wrong to me, my parents think its normal and there was nothing they could have done at the time?

The same builder then had a big job with a friend to improve/extend the house and took £50,000, only to declare bankruptcy. Apparently not one penny was returned and there is nothing they can do?

Surely there is some protection for this... how can £50,000 disappear? There are others in the village that used the same builder that had problems too. Give the builders reputation, he probably damaged our walls purposely to get more work/money and scammed multiple people.

bris

Nope no protection what so ever, the money is gone, you can report them to trading standards but unless they can prove fraud, and that's not easy, then they get away scot free.


Regardless of any outcome by the trading standards the money is gone.


Your not the first and certainly wont be the last victim of rogue builders.

Hintza

All payments need to be staged to various milestones/time periods. When we built our house we paid a lot of money to a QS to inspect the works and authorise payments. To me it was money well spent as the builder tried it on on virtually every monthly stage payment.

bod1467

If they paid (even just £100 of the £50k) by credit card then a Section 75 claim could be looked at?

vaio

bod1467 wrote: »

If they paid (even just £100 of the £50k) by credit card then a Section 75 claim could be looked at?

The £100 is the minimum cost of the goods/job for s75 to kick in.

As long as you pay *any* part of the cost you are covered

The stumbling block comes in that s75 doesn't apply if what you are buying costs more than £30k

bod1467

Good point ... I forgot about the £30k upper limit.

no1catman

The jump from £5k - £10k doesn't seem right - (even the £5k seems high).
But why, oh why, would anyone pay £50k all in one go - apparently before the work started!?
Moreover, what did the other 'builders' quote ? Surely they didn't just ask one!

Hintza

Could it be looked at as fraud?

If he was trading whilst insolvent that is illegal.

frugal_mike

Replastering a wall doesn't cost £5k. Replastering an entire room doesn't cost 5k. I recently had a full room and a ceiling in a second room replastered for a tenth of that. They must have done some significant damage for it to cost 5k. Whether or not you owed them the money would depend on whether or not it was their fault the room was damaged, and what exactly the terms of the contract were.

As for the 50k, I wouldn't be paying that out up front as others have said.

Hintza

Is that your friend posting on the "In my home" board?

asm3k

I asked my parents and it turns out that the friend got work done on his house first and recommended him to us as he thought he was honest and did a good job.

My parents experience said otherwise and we warned the friend but he reused the same builder for his business. I think it was £10k upfront and the builder started work briefly. He then soon asked £50k and because the friend thought he was honest gave him the money and the next thing he knew the builder was bankrupt. Apparently he saw a solictor but they said they could not do anything.

I guess I'm wondering why the friend was not able to recover a single penny. After looking a little online it turns out its quite common for there to be dodgy builders...

frugal_mike wrote: »

Replastering a wall doesn't cost £5k. Replastering an entire room doesn't cost 5k. I recently had a full room and a ceiling in a second room replastered for a tenth of that. They must have done some significant damage for it to cost 5k. Whether or not you owed them the money would depend on whether or not it was their fault the room was damaged, and what exactly the terms of the contract were.

As for the 50k, I wouldn't be paying that out up front as others have said.

We had some wooden beams removed as part of the agreed work but they did not expect the walls to be damaged while removing them. Our house is old so it cracked a lot apparently.

Hintza wrote: »

Is that your friend posting on the "In my home" board?

Is there a similar post?