Badly rendered wall, advice sought pls

Maz

Don't know if this is the right place but any advice greatly appreciated.

Had a plasterer come round to quote for re rendering my front garden wall. Frost had got behind the old plaster and to be fair, most of it had already fallen off, exposing brickwork which is in poor condition. He quoted £468 for the front and returning wall. He's a new local business and I always try to support fledgling businesses to agreed to the verbal quote. The work took about 3.5 days and price included removal of all debris.

Anyway.............on the final day, plasterer was fairly insistent on being paid there and then so muggins here thought, oh well, new business probably needs to get some cash flow going so I gave him a cheque for the full amount agreed. Debris was to be cleared and the area cleaned up the next day when I was not at home. The debris was stacked in my front garden obscuring the inside of the wall.

Next day, returned home to find mess trailed all the way down my lane, a note through my door from neighbour complaining about the mess and when I checked the finished wall, there were areas that had not been completed i.e. some old plaster left on, a corner was imconplete and crumbling, the inside of the wall has a finish reminiscent of the Himalayas. Overall, a pretty bad job. Got onto plasterer, brief conversation, said he would call on Wednesday to arrange to come back and finish properly. In the meantime, I put a stop on the cheque to be on the safe side. No phone call on the Wednesday.

Text received today from plasterer about cancelled cheque and informing me that there would be an extra charge to put the job right and also, as his bank charged him, he would be adding in the cost of the cancelled cheque.

If you've managed to read this far, thank you and any comments/advice welcome!

escapee

Not so much advice but just an observation. I think the plasterer needs to take one step at a time and look at putting the job right before making demands for extra funds.

The finish sounds appalling, the concern I would also have is, is he competent enough to actually complete the job to a satisfactory level.

You could possibly give him a timeframe to put the works right and then look at other avenues such as Citizens Advice or Trading Standards to see what your rights would be to withhold/decline payment and seek remedial works from another trader.

jjgold

hes not in a position to be making demands, squeeze him hard!!

saverbuyer

There's no defence in law for cancelling a cheque. Take plenty of pictures of the unfinished work, but if the plasterer takes you to court, expect to pay the amount on the cheque.