Building Control - owner or builder?

shdmummy

Dear MSE Forum Friends,
Let me just recap to those who don't know my situation. We hired a "premium" builders of SE of London. Last 4 weeks before finish they ransomed a some of £35,000 which we refuse to pay. They took their tools away and also took most of the installed items such as Boiler, underfloor heating etc. We have just discovered that they even did not call Building control. We both are panicking at the moment as we don't know who was responsible for it. We did the initial building control check for foundation and paid for the inspectors visit but since then now 60% of work done they did not ask for building control to check the insulation etc.

My question is what can I do now? Should I contact the council regarding this? Will council charge me extra? Can I let the council know what the builders did to us. Can we let them know that we had the full intentions but it was builder who were supposed to contact you as they know the progress than us.

I will really appreciate your help.

Doozergirl

It's your responsibility, ultimately. Of course a proper builder (not even a premium builder) will manage it all for you.

Building Control are reasonable people and I am sure that if you explain what has happened, they will provide advice and help where they can to get you on track. Call them out.

I can't understand how you've had five friends use the same firm successfully. Who says they're premium builders? Their own marketing materials?

Rain_Shadow

shdmummy wrote: »

Dear MSE Forum Friends,
Let me just recap to those who don't know my situation. We hired a "premium" builders of SE of London. Last 4 weeks before finish they ransomed a some of £35,000 which we refuse to pay. They took their tools away and also took most of the installed items such as Boiler, underfloor heating etc. We have just discovered that they even did not call Building control. We both are panicking at the moment as we don't know who was responsible for it. We did the initial building control check for foundation and paid for the inspectors visit but since then now 60% of work done they did not ask for building control to check the insulation etc.

My question is what can I do now? Should I contact the council regarding this? Will council charge me extra? Can I let the council know what the builders did to us. Can we let them know that we had the full intentions but it was builder who were supposed to contact you as they know the progress than us.

I will really appreciate your help.

Have you been taking detailed pictures of the build?


I have just had an extension completed. After the screed was poured the inspector asked to see the underfloor insulation. Fortunately I had a picture of it in situ and he was content with that.

shdmummy

Hi Doozergirl,
I keep calling them "premium" because they charged us extra for these things but now I am finding out that they did not do any of this. I am a bit shocked to be honest.

Glad to know that they are flexible. I have all pictures as the architect took all of them. THANK GOD!

BTW, those five friends had a different team all together. Not the same team as ours. Our team was the worst one and they wanted to finish a bad job as the money was not that much. Never seen such blatant dishonest people in my life.

Summer_Dreams

You pay the council a set fee and I believe for this they will come out to inspect as many times is as needed/ if work needs redoing etc.

I also had builder problems and got building control to come out last week and give me a verbal list of what is outstanding from ther point of view before the extension can be completed. They highlighted issues I wasn't aware of and I don't think my old builder was either!! I'd recommend you do the same!!

shdmummy

Summer Dream, What problems did you have with your builders? We are very confused how to go ahead now.

Summer_Dreams

If you can see my other posts you can see what's happened with builder. But basically I was uptodate with agreed payments, they hadn't completed yet he was going on holiday and wanted some spending money and when I said no he got nasty and threatened to kill me if I didn't. I don't want him back now and this isn't the first problem he tried to blackmail me into paying him more and said if I didn't he would go off and do other jobs so I sat there in a half finished house for a month waiting for him, just me and my 2 children it's not nice living conditions!

Fortunately for me the amount I owe him now is roughly the same as it will cost to get another builder to finish. But then I got out the building inspector who told me everything that needed doing some of which I didn't have a clue about. They hadn't even got the foundations checked for part of my extension so it needs digging down and underpinning if necessary!!

Furts

Summer_Dreams wrote: »

If you can see my other posts you can see what's happened with builder. But basically I was uptodate with agreed payments, they hadn't completed yet he was going on holiday and wanted some spending money and when I said no he got nasty and threatened to kill me if I didn't. I don't want him back now and this isn't the first problem he tried to blackmail me into paying him more and said if I didn't he would go off and do other jobs so I sat there in a half finished house for a month waiting for him, just me and my 2 children it's not nice living conditions!

Fortunately for me the amount I owe him now is roughly the same as it will cost to get another builder to finish. But then I got out the building inspector who told me everything that needed doing some of which I didn't have a clue about. They hadn't even got the foundations checked for part of my extension so it needs digging down and underpinning if necessary!!

Hopefully you have a pot of money to use here and also a built in contingency. Underpinning is not a quick, cheap operation.

Summer_Dreams

Furts wrote: »

Hopefully you have a pot of money to use here and also a built in contingency. Underpinning is not a quick, cheap operation.

Furts, I think I'll be ok money wise, if need be I'll get the essentials done by another builder to get it signed off and the rest can wait until I can afford it if it ends up going over budget or I'll have a go myself!

My main concern is that the old builders seem to think that I owe them the full amount since I terminated the contract and didn't give them a chance to finish! They said they'll send bailiffs around, I'm assuming they'd have to get a court order to do that and that I'd get opportunity to put my side of the story forward!