Roofing contractor problems - anyone know what my legal position might be?

Puflet

Hi All!

I'd be very grateful if you could shed any light on the following situation...

I have an old terraced cottage which has had a problem with water stains on the bedroom ceiling for the last year or so; my next door neighbours have, likewise. It all seemed to be due to leaks around the chimney which is shared by both properties, though neither of us actually uses it.

These were fixed back in January this year, and all seemed to be fine until after that very long heatwave we had over the summer - when my ceiling developed a crack through which the rainwater dripped with carefree abandon. The original guy came back and did some more work on the chimney, but it still leaked. He said he did not know what else he could do, and advised us to get another contractor.

We got various roofing contractors to come and have a look; most of them didn't even get back to give us a quote. The company that did, though, came back with a price of just over £2,000. When he looked at the roof he commented that the boards connecting my flat roof seemed to be rotten, but nothing about this was included in the quote to fix the chimney.

It seems that the quote included removing all previous remedial works and starting again from scratch, and although the neighbours and I gasped a bit at the price, we decided it would be worth it to have the problem sorted once and for all.

However... my roof is still leaking. They came and had a look, and said the leak was actually due to the flat roof boarding and, to be fair, they took a photo showing where the water was coming in.

I have spend around £1,000 to fix a roof leak - that hasn't solved the problem. On the other hand, fixing that particular cause wasn't included in the initial quote, although it had been noted by the chief roofer.

I want to deal with this in as civilised a matter as possible.

Does anyone know where I stand legally? Any comments or advice would be very welcome!

ceredigion

Man takes his car to a garage and asks the mechanic to change the front right tyre.
Mechanic does as instructed.
Man complains because left headlamp doesn't work.

tacpot12

I think you have quite a good legal case. I presume the work you asked the contractor to do was to fix the leak. This work should have had a warranty that was long enough for a heavy downpour to occur so that you would know that the problem had been fixed.

They are the roofers, not you, so they should be able to determine the source of the water ingress and should not have started fixing one part of the roof unless they were sure of the source of the ingress.

If you have evidence that you asked them to fix the leak, I would put this evidence too them as say that you asked them to fix the leak, and it is still leaking but you are happy to allow them a second chance to fix the leak for free. If you feel they need encouragement, you could offer to go halves on the extra material needed.

bris

You asked them to fix the chimney, they fixed the chimney. They told you the roof was leaking due to the boards but you didn't ask for that to be fixed too, who is to blame?

Doozergirl

ceredigion wrote: »

Man takes his car to a garage and asks the mechanic to change the front right tyre.
Mechanic does as instructed.
Man complains because left headlamp doesn't work.

If you fix something three times and you still have a problem, then it's likely that you were trying to fix the wrong problem.

My friend calls it 'looking in the wrong filing cabinet'.

Puflet

ceredigion wrote: »

Man takes his car to a garage and asks the mechanic to change the front right tyre.
Mechanic does as instructed.
Man complains because left headlamp doesn't work.

Man puts his car in for MOT, it fails, he pays for work to make it pass. It fails again.

Thanks for clarifying this issue!