Double glazing compensation

Aylesbury_Duck

Ok, but do quantify the real losses you have suffered and insist on the resolution of the faults before you pay for those elements.

It sounds as if they might be amenable to a reduction as a gesture of goodwill but as someone else said, make sure it's agreed with them rather than you withholding money unreasonably.

soul_fool

Thanks for your detailed response. As mentioned earlier, we haven't actually suffered any financial loss but I don't think that's the point. Like I said, if they took 2 years to do the job would they be entitled to full payment as long as everything we asked for had been done?


I guess inconvenience is a very subjective thing and hard to quantify. But we have been inconvenienced by the whole episode and as the client, it's our opinion that matters.


Hopefully they will see this and make a sensible offer of compensation, but I will not be swayed by a £50 gesture of good will.

Aylesbury_Duck

soul_fool wrote: »

Thanks for your detailed response. As mentioned earlier, we haven't actually suffered any financial loss but I don't think that's the point. Like I said, if they took 2 years to do the job would they be entitled to full payment as long as everything we asked for had been done? It is the point though and if push comes to shove, you won't be able to quantify non-material losses in any dispute or small claims court.
If it looked like it was a never-ending project, you could stop work, pay them for what they have done and hire another contractor to complete the job, so it wouldn't get to two years and they wouldn't get full payment - only payment for what they have completed and deductions for any damage they've caused.

I guess inconvenience is a very subjective thing and hard to quantify. But we have been inconvenienced by the whole episode and as the client, it's our opinion that matters.
Your opinion as the client is valid, but no, it doesn't matter. It might matter to the firm in the long run if they lose business through reputation but that doesn't help you now.

Hopefully they will see this and make a sensible offer of compensation, but I will not be swayed by a £50 gesture of good will. When it comes to what they offer/suggest by way of compensation, you don't hold many cards so it's not about what will sway you. If they offer £50 for your unquantified losses and you refuse, what next? Fast forward to the point where the dispute becomes formal and you've refused a compensation offer and it might not reflect well on you.

I'm being critical because these are things you will have to face if you start trying to play hard-ball. I presume that you have no appetite to stop work and employ someone else, so at this stage you need the firm on-side to resolve the problems you have (damage) and to complete the job. I'm sure the contractor would rather have it done and dusted because your job is blocking other business. Whatever figure you have in mind as a minimum (let's say it's £1000), what are you going to do if their offer is half that?

soul_fool

Aylesbury_Duck wrote: »

Whatever figure you have in mind as a minimum (let's say it's £1000), what are you going to do if their offer is half that?

I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. This is a small company though that gets their business by word of mouth and so their reputation is everything. We've already had 2 neighbors say how much they like the windows and asking for details of the company, but we're going to go back to them and say they should be avoided.


If they want to play hard ball, I can do that. There will be bad reviews left all over the internet which could be particularly damaging for a company of this size. I'd rather not do that though as, despite what you may think reading my posts, I'm not a vindictive or spiteful person. But I'm also not here to be walked over. Hopefully they will offer something that I find reasonable and I can then wash my hands of them.

lincroft1710

soul_fool wrote: »

Like I said, if they took 2 years to do the job would they be entitled to full payment as long as everything we asked for had been done?

But they haven't taken 2 years, so that is irrelevant.

bigisi

soul_fool wrote: »

despite what you may think reading my posts, I'm not a vindictive or spiteful person.

Clearly........................

soul_fool wrote: »

If they want to play hard ball, I can do that. There will be bad reviews left all over the internet

Aylesbury_Duck

soul_fool wrote: »

I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. This is a small company though that gets their business by word of mouth and so their reputation is everything. We've already had 2 neighbors say how much they like the windows and asking for details of the company, but we're going to go back to them and say they should be avoided.

If they want to play hard ball, I can do that. There will be bad reviews left all over the internet which could be particularly damaging for a company of this size. I'd rather not do that though as, despite what you may think reading my posts, I'm not a vindictive or spiteful person. But I'm also not here to be walked over. Hopefully they will offer something that I find reasonable and I can then wash my hands of them.

All very impressive and good for your sense of injustice I'm sure, but it isn't going to get you the compensation you desire.

And as for posting lots of bad reviews, you only have to take a cursory glance at the posts on these forums to see that plenty of people are great at carrying out due diligence on their contractors, usually after they encounter problems. On that note, what due diligence did you carry out on this firm before employing them? Perhaps they already have some poor reviews from previous customers they've let down? if they have, then it clearly didn't stop them getting £15k of your business.

I know you're angry about the situation, justifiably so, but a cool, rational, assertive approach to this is going to get a better result than indignant threats and a stubborn view on what you think you're entitled to. You should accept your own part in the problems that have ensued because from your description you have employed someone to undertake a reasonably expensive project without having put in place a proper contract with terms to suit your needs and possibly without decent oversight of the project as it's unfolded. I'm not suggesting the firm aren't primarily responsible but it sounds as if you've let the situation run away from you.

soul_fool

Thank you all for your responses. Some differences of opinion, but when isn't there.


They were meant to be on site all day today, so it'll be interesting to see what progress they've made (if any) later on. I'm sticking by my guns though and will expect to be offered compensation - and will ask for it if not offered.


I'll be sure to keep you posted on the final outcome.

unholyangel

soul_fool wrote: »

Thank you all for your responses. Some differences of opinion, but when isn't there.

Where was the difference of opinion? As far as I understand it, all replies seem to have been unanimous.

We're not telling you not to ask for goodwill, we're just trying to explain that there are rules around what you can legally recover and this isn't part of it.

To give you an idea of what the courts might award even if your contract fit into the exceptions I listed, a married couple were unable to live in the home they had purchased and had to spend 2 years travelling across the country to oversee works required to bring the building up to habitable standards. They also attributed a large part of their divorce to the problems caused by the house. This was after a survey failed to highlight the issues. They were awarded the princely sum of £750 - about £1 per day.

Now you haven't been unable to live in your home and haven't had the inconvenience of travelling several hundred miles every week to oversee work that should never have been required in the first place. So how do you think your claim would weigh up against that?

In law, unless you explicitly made time of the essence at the time of entering the contract, them breaching the initial time frame doesn't entitle you to end the contract. You can send a letter giving a further deadline and then if that deadline is breached, you can treat the contract as at an end. Although you'd still be due to pay them the balance less the amount it would cost you to have the contract completed and any other reasonable quantifiable losses.

Civil law is not penal in nature. It is designed to put you into as near a position as possible to the position you would have been in had the contract been performed correctly - or as near as money can achieve it (in other words, that you shouldn't be out of pocket for actual financial losses). It won't go further than that because that goes further than required to restore you to your rightful position and moves into the territory of penalising the party in breach - which is the job of criminal law, not civil.

soul_fool

unholyangel wrote: »

Where was the difference of opinion? As far as I understand it, all replies seem to have been unanimous.

I'm talking about the responses differing from my opinion.


Anyway, the guy came back to me last night. Despite some bizarre claims regarding what he thought myself and my wife told him we wanted, he's admitted that their performance hasn't been up to scratch. He's offered to carry out some additional work, to the value of just under £1,000, for free by way of recompense.


We're going to go back and thank him for the offer but wish to just have the value of the extra work taken off of our final bill. The additional work isn't something we're overly worried about having done and the extra money would come in handy.