advice appreciated on builders claim of debt owing

loveyourmoney

Hi everyone, I'm hoping to get a bit of advice please....

Its a bit of a long story but a few years back we had an extension built on our house and had a few problems with the builder. The quality of his work was excellent but the problem was he would just keep doing things we hadn't agreed and then charging for them. Basically in the end we paid more than double his original estimate. His final invoice of £15k was again much more than we felt it should be. We had a meeting with him and it was agreed we would pay 10k to settle the payment. That was june 2013. I have heard nothing from him since until this morning when a letter dropped on my doormat claiming we still owe him £5k.
I'm completely at a loss as to what to do, I do intend to get legal advice but also wanted ask if anyone had any insights. I mean this was over 2 years ago. If we owed him money he would not have waited this long to get it. He knows full well we have paid what was agreed and is surely just chancing his arm.
The building work very nearly bankrupted us and we do not have any more money to give, even if we did owe it.

Thanks in advance :eek:

National_Debtline

Hi there,


If this is just a letter sent by him (or a solicitor acting on his behalf) then you can write back and dispute the money owed, based on the meeting you had in 2013. Do you have anything in writing from that meeting to say that it was only £10k to be paid?


He will be within the time limit to act under the limitations act (which states that he has 6 years to go to court from the last payment made or acknowledgement of the debt after the debt fell due) but you may be able to discuss with a solicitor about whether the delay from one your last payment to this one can be raised as a dispute.


At this stage, he can only ask for it. If you refuse to pay he will need to sue you for the money and it will need to be argued at court - so you are right to get some legal advice now. Good luck,


Laura
@natdebtline

loveyourmoney

Many thanks for you reply Laura, I think I have some of the paperwork but maybe not all, probably stupidly I doubt I've kept everything. I just assumed it was all done and dusted. I suspect that's why he's waited so long, knowing I would no longer have any evidence and not be able to remember exact conversations etc.

I am right to assume if he did take me to court I would have to produce hard evidence? or is it done on a more common sense basis? I mean in total we paid this guy over 100k so why on earth would I try to stiff him for 5k!!! In all honesty at the time I was so sick of the guy i'd have paid him more than that to just go and never darken my doorstep again.

The things he overcharged for were crazy, which is why we disputed some of the costs. For example he quoted to replace and install the boiler but it transpired that 'install' did not include wiring it into the electric, only hooking up to the gas! To wire it in he wanted an extra £600! He only told us this after it was sat in the utility room plumbed in and we tried to use the hot water assuming it was working.

Also at one point in the build he disappeared for about 6 months leaving us with no kitchen (just a worktop balanced on top of a fridge and a bucket for a sink!!!), yet we still didn't refuse to pay what we owed.

Surely in court common sense would prevail???

National_Debtline

Hello again,


I am afraid I cannot say what the courts will need to see if it all gets this far, this is where you would need legal advice. I would suggest you try and get some cheap legal advice now so that you have a better understanding of your position in all of this.


This may even help you to write back to him now and avoid court all together, but if it does go to court I would imagine you are going to need some evidence to dispute his claim that money is owed. You can try www.lawcentres.org.uk as a starting point. Good luck,


Laura
@natdebtline