Help! Builder demanding payment of deposit after I cancelled work

suz2003

Hi all
I am a new poster to the forum but have been viewing for a while.
I am in a difficult situation and am wondering if anybody is able to provide me with any guidance.

Briefly the situation is as follows;
I obtained a number of quotes from building firms in June 19 for full renovation and some structural work in my kitchen. I agreed to proceed with one of the builders following his quote. He subsequently sent through a draft contract and expressly demanded payment of a deposit (approx £2k - 10% of total cost) to be paid in advance of the planned start date in August. A few days after receiving the contract I had 2-3 emails demanding immediate payment of the deposit to secure the dates as they had been apparently turning down plenty of work for the planned time slot. After approx 12-13 days of receiving the contract by email I decided to terminate the contract in writing and released the booked slot as I felt I was being pressured in to making an immediate payment plus I felt their manner was aggressive.
Following this I received a nasty email accusing me of wasting their time and that they would suffer financially etc. I declined to reply and heard nothing for a while.
Since then I have engaged a different builder to do the work which has started. A few weeks ago I received a letter from the original builder demanding full payment of the £2k deposit. I responded saying that I had exercised my right to cancel and nothing is due as they have not provided any services. They are now threatening court action and obviously I am very stressed about how far they can take this and whether I will be liable to pay them.
Any help would be gratefully received.
Many thanks
Suz

hollydays

The only thing that strikes me is, why would you need to mess the builder about.

Why not tell him straightaway rather than hang on for two weeks.

SHAFT

suz2003 wrote: »

Hi all
I am a new poster to the forum but have been viewing for a while.
I am in a difficult situation and am wondering if anybody is able to provide me with any guidance.

Briefly the situation is as follows;
I obtained a number of quotes from building firms in June 19 for full renovation and some structural work in my kitchen. I agreed to proceed with one of the builders following his quote. He subsequently sent through a draft contract and expressly demanded payment of a deposit (approx £2k - 10% of total cost) to be paid in advance of the planned start date in August. A few days after receiving the contract I had 2-3 emails demanding immediate payment of the deposit to secure the dates as they had been apparently turning down plenty of work for the planned time slot. After approx 12-13 days of receiving the contract by email I decided to terminate the contract in writing and released the booked slot as I felt I was being pressured in to making an immediate payment plus I felt their manner was aggressive.
Following this I received a nasty email accusing me of wasting their time and that they would suffer financially etc. I declined to reply and heard nothing for a while.
Since then I have engaged a different builder to do the work which has started. A few weeks ago I received a letter from the original builder demanding full payment of the £2k deposit. I responded saying that I had exercised my right to cancel and nothing is due as they have not provided any services. They are now threatening court action and obviously I am very stressed about how far they can take this and whether I will be liable to pay them.
Any help would be gratefully received.
Many thanks
Suz

So a contract was formed, without the full details it's difficult to determine whether you're liable for any costs.

Edithgrand

Did they find work for your cancelled dates?

tacpot12

You could be liable to pay them £2,000, but only if you were told that you would have to pay a 10% deposit when you "agreed to proceed".

The builder will have a hard time proving that you were about the 10% deposit prior to you receiving the quote, and it is his job to prove this. It is not unreasonable, given the size of the quote to need to wait a few days before accepting the work; a) to wait for other quotes to come in and b) to check that you can borrow that amount of money. The builder is being a bit unreasonable chasing you for payment with a couple of days. However, the builder is entitled to give your slot to the first customer who pays their deposit, so he could have accepted other work and pushed you down the list.

You might offer to pay a small sum for the time spent preparing the quote. I would offer to pay between £100 and £200 depending on the level of detail. It the quote is a good detailed quote, it might have take a couple of hours to create, more if there is are drawings. It the quote is light on detail, don't offer to pay anything for it. The judge will see it didn't take long to prepare.

suz2003

Thanks. What further details do you require to ascertain if I am required to pay, given the start date of the contract was early August and I did not sign anything in writing.

suz2003

Edithgrand wrote: »

Did they find work for your cancelled dates?

I do not know,however they were very insistent about how busy they are and how they had been turning down jobs for my booked period. I have also seen some reviews of the builder online during the month of August which was when my work was due.

suz2003

tacpot12 wrote: »

You could be liable to pay them £2,000, but only if you were told that you would have to pay a 10% deposit when you "agreed to proceed".

The builder will have a hard time proving that you were about the 10% deposit prior to you receiving the quote, and it is his job to prove this. It is not unreasonable, given the size of the quote to need to wait a few days before accepting the work; a) to wait for other quotes to come in and b) to check that you can borrow that amount of money. The builder is being a bit unreasonable chasing you for payment with a couple of days. However, the builder is entitled to give your slot to the first customer who pays their deposit, so he could have accepted other work and pushed you down the list.

You might offer to pay a small sum for the time spent preparing the quote. I would offer to pay between £100 and £200 depending on the level of detail. It the quote is a good detailed quote, it might have take a couple of hours to create, more if there is are drawings. It the quote is light on detail, don't offer to pay anything for it. The judge will see it didn't take long to prepare.

Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately they did state that a deposit would be required to secure the slot when sending through the contract. However given that I released the slot and never paid the securing deposit would i still be liable to pay. The quote is just a list of tasks to complete less than A4 page and I provided the builder with a schedule of works required to assist him with the quote so should not have taken too much time.

suz2003

SHAFT wrote: »

So a contract was formed, without the full details it's difficult to determine whether you're liable for any costs.

Thanks. What further details do you require to ascertain if I am required to pay, given the start date of the contract was early August and I did not sign anything in writing.

davidmcn

suz2003 wrote: »

I did not sign anything in writing.

You don't need to have signed anything for a contract to have been formed - and it sounds like you accept there was a contract. We haven't seen the draft contract or any surrounding correspondence, so it's difficult for us to give you proper advice without seeing what you have.

You refer to you "exercising your right to cancel" - what does the contract say about cancellation?

pinkshoes

suz2003 wrote: »

I have also seen some reviews of the builder online during the month of August which was when my work was due.

Are these Facebook reviews? Is it possible to contact the people leaving the reviews asking when they had the work done? (You could pretend to be asking about the quality of the work...). Evidence they filled your week would be good!

If the deposit was to "secure the date" and you didn't pay the deposit, then given they claim to have so many people wanting work done, I'm struggling to see how they can claim the £2000. At best, you would owe them an admin fee for any work carried out after verbally accepting the quote e.g. The time it took them to compile the list of jobs that needed doing.