Builder Blackmailing more money

shdmummy

Thank you so much the scousela! will start the process now. Will contact citizen advice bureau as well.

thescouselander

Also I agree with teneighty - see if you can procure the services of a surveyor or similar to value the work that has been done so you can see where you are on the contract payments.

Doozergirl

Go and see a solicitor this week. Take the paperwork you do have. Can you share what you have with us?

Are they members of the FMB? The FMB have a dispute resolution service for their members and this will involve a surveyor to assess the value of work.

Where is your architect? Were they project managing or not? Please answer this question.

Did you have a payment schedule agreed at the beginning?

12% in variations isn't an unreasonable amount on a renovation project but the builders need to make the effort to detail out what those are. And you also need to establish what the agreement entailed.

I can understand your distress, but you need to find the right help to find your solution out of here. Thoughts of self harm are awful. The negative voice in your head that worries consistently and beats you up *Is Not You* and you do not deserve to feel like this. Money is actually nothing but an illusion and even if the worst case is that you had to find more money, it is still only money. Life and love are the absolute most important things. Thoughts - just because we have them, does not make them true.

I would think the people on the Debt Free Wannabe forums could really help with putting perspective on debt and actually how just a small mindshift helps the entire mental health situation around debts.

This isn't to say that you necessarily owe the money. All you can do is deal with things one step at a time. I think you need to not argue for the moment about whether you owe money or not with your builder, but certainly tell them that you will discuss the amounts with them if they detail out what are variations to the contract. You need to build some sort of paperwork to base decisions on.

When you are on a building project, the list of 'can you just' items can very very quickly spiral out of control. "Like for Like" is a vague sort of specification, it is definitley not a schedule (list) of works.

Whatever list of work you have - you must have communicated it somehow? - will form part of your contract along with the architect's drawings.

Furts

I am with Doozergirl but with a proviso. It does not matter about your Architect or Project Manager (if you have one, or both, or none of these). I say this because clearly things have gone wrong so if they are involved they are clearly no good.

You require good, professional advice from a building professional to sort out exactly where you are. Your earlier posts are worrying to those with skilled, practical, technical and professional knowledge. Basically if you were employing a competent builder then you would never have been making these posts.

My suggestion is to engage a good Chartered Building Surveyor, or as a cheaper option (and probably better option) a Clerk Of Works. Of course there will be a cost but somehow this all has to be sorted out.

You could try leaning on your Building Inspector (I assume you have one and have a good working relationship with this person?). But bear in mind this is not their responsibility nor their problem area.

Doozergirl

I guess it's interest really, Furts. Although it's nice to have someone overseeing things, architects can be terrible project managers but seem to have impunity because everything comes back on the contractor/builder and client anyway and the architect still gets paid.

shdmummy

Hi Doozergirl and Furts,
I totally agree with you. My architect did act as my side of Project manager. My builder bought their own project manager and now he is trying to take their salary from my money. They have two PM working from their end. I wonder after having two PM why is my project still not completed? Why do I have discrepancies in money? Why should I pay for their mistake?

Today I was rudely told that I don't have a status to afford top builders like them. And also threatened that if we don't pay they will start removing things from the house.

I would like to ask builders and general people who have gone through this process before. If they have ****ed up in their costing, why should I pay for it? I was shown fancy houses before start of the project but now they are completely back tracking and want to give me the basic finished house. Why should I accept?

I was told that a contract is not for them. They said that with builders like them no contract is needed. They work on trust. How can I trust such people who have no integrity? They say one thing day before and then charge me for that?

Finally, I am going to start my legal process on Tuesday. Before complete break-down of conversation I still want to give them one last chance. I will offer all genuine cost they have incurred due to my addition and offer to pay. To be honest that amount only comes £600 that too adding whatever breakdown they brought today. How is this justified against the £30,000 bill they gave us?

The contract clearly said like for like. They are our aluminium windows with UPVC and saying that UPVC is better? They are replacing our steel finish lights with cheapest option. Is this justified?

Cheers

System

250k extension and no formal contract?! That's mental. Someone should have been documenting changes and variations and they should have been approved at every stage.
Given you have no contract it's awkward, but a decent option would be to get a qs to value the work on site then you pay for what's there since you can't agree on variations...
When you were asking for changes did you speak directly to the contractor or was it done through the architect? Who has been providing valuations so far?
How often has the architect been on site and what service have they been providing? Does their appointment say contract administrator?

Doozergirl

I'm getting a bit frustrated. Even in this last post there is no contract, then there is a contract. Is there a list of what had to be done?

If you want help, you need to focus on fact, not who said what that upset someone. And that has to be stopped on site too. Start documenting your correspondence and move forward will intention. Arguing 'yes, no' will not help anyone.

I agree with r_sole, I think the work carried out needs to be valued. Everyone involved in this project had a responsibility to document what was going on, including you, OP, if no one else was doing it.

"Like for like" is ridiculous. You need to move beyond fittings. I appreciate that is mainly what it's all about for most clients, but when you value work, the labour involved in building is the most expensive thing usually, and cannot possibly be "like for like". If structural problems are encountered during uncovering, you may see 'like for like' when the wallpaper's on, but you'll never see the work that went into it. That is what has to be established. With a separate PM, it's also incredibly likely that extra work was agreed with them.

Lbuk

Not to this scale but with every one of the building projects in my house there have been undocumented variations that I get charged for or sometimes reimbursed for... well no actual money in my pocket but subtracted off the "variations" invoice.

I suppose that I trusted them and if your company is so highly regarded I suspect that you could trust them and that you have been waving your finger around as if things appeared by magic.

They clearly also trusted you to be aware of cost vs budget and instead you've been naive.

I really feel for you, I do, but I can see a scenario of this sort where the builder isn't at fault at all.

Maybe him pulling out features instead of you being handed a £30k bill and you getting a house you can actually afford finished to a liveable standard isn't the worst outcome.

thescouselander

The builder should know better though. They should have drawn up a proper contract and any amendments should have been made and authorised before the altered work was done.

In this case it doesn't even sound like a verbal contract was made because the builder made no offer in terms of the cost of any alterations and there was nothing for the OP to accept.