Flooring dispute

matticus7

Hi,

In June my wife and I went to a well known flooring store in our area to replace the existing laminate flooring in our home as we're planning to sell it.

We agreed on the price and to use their suggested fitters (sub contracted company) which worked out approx £1100 for the flooring paid to the shop via credit card and £800 for the fitting to be paid to the fitting company in cash upon completion of the work.

The £800 was for approx 66-68 square foot of flooring and underlay to be laid as well as 16 strips of beading. I lifted and removed the existing flooring so they were only there to lay the flooring for that cost.

The installation began at the start of June and I've summed up a list of events from then until now.

JUNE

The fitters came out and laid the flooring in the bedroom as it was the furthest room in the home, everything went fine at the time.

They then started to move into the passage and again everything seemed fine, no issues at this point.

When they got to the do the flooring in the living room / open kitchen area they noticed there was damp under the old council tiles which have concrete underneath. They lifted the tiles up and told us they wouldn't be able to fit it until we sorted the problem out and advised we lift all of the tiles up and let the room dry out.

We did this the same day and it dried out within 48 hours

JULY

We had to wait another week with no flooring until they came back out to continue the work

They began to fit the flooring only to then tell me the flooring had somehow bent during the week they left it out and it wasn't clicking together correctly. They took the wood back to the flooring shop (I was given no receipt of how much wood was taken as it was all loose from them opening the boxes and stacking it)

The fitters then turned up a few days later after chasing them up again and arrived with the same wood which had apparently magically cured itself while it was at the shop and was now fitting fine...

AUGUST

The final job was to finish the bathroom with LVT which was done to a good standard but again there was a hassle getting them back out to finish that room.

After all the work was completed we had the heatwave and over the next few days 2 different parts of the house started to buckle really badly.

I contacted the fitters to come out and resolve this as they had been paid in full for "completing" the job but the wood was buckling

SEPTEMBER

After numerous attempts to resolve this directly with no response I'd had enough and contacted the store and complained to their manager who was very understanding and sent her assistant manager out to assess the work that needed to be done to fix the flooring

He advised that as the buckling was as you leave the bedroom going into the passage and also the adjoining part of the passage it was likely something to do with the door frame section that was causing the problem and the best solution would be to cut it, place a door bar (which I didn't want as it was supposed to be flowing through the house) and that would give both sides breathing room to flatten out. I begrudgingly accepted this and waited for the fitters to come out.

The fitters came out a week later and said they couldn't do that as the wood went under the door frame and wouldn't be able to be cut and advised they would take the back row off the bedroom to allow it to move in that direction which worked.... for the bedroom part. The passage is still like a bouncy castle to walk on

OCTOBER

Another week of trying to contact the fitters to no response. I contacted the flooring store and magically got a call from the fitter within 30 minutes

We're now told their plan is to cut the floor (which couldn't be done before) and fit a door bar to separate the rooms and relay new flooring as it's probably too damaged by now with the buckling in the passage (only 4 planks)

They are due to come out on 14/10/19 to do this and there's no guarantees this will be the end of the story

I've had to take so many days off work for this I've lost count. The number of times they've come out, given an excuse they couldn't do it today and left it for another few days / a week is insane. I've also lost count of how many calls, voicemails, unanswered calls and texts we've made to them. My wife is understandably upset at the whole situation and at me for letting it go on for so long but I just want the work finished for my wife and kids.

So my question is what rights do I have here for compensation, if any? I bought the flooring from a chain store on my credit card, was advised their (sub contracted) fitters were in high demand because of the quality of their work so agreed to use their fitters. The fitters were paid cash in hand with no receipt given to prove I've paid. If a complaint and compensation were to be pursued first of all would I be taking this up with the flooring store who I arranged all of this through and sub contract these fitters for their jobs or with the fitters own company directly?

Thanks

DCFC79

Have you complained to them ?


Asked them to finish the job ?

matticus7

I've complained to both the flooring company and the fitter. The flooring company were apologetic and sympathised with the situation and the store manager got onto them when we were being messed around and being ignored when trying to get them back out to fix the work.

The fitter however doesn't really seem to care as he has too much work coming in and according to his own staff takes on much more than they should be doing.

It took 2 1/2 months to get the work completed and the following 1 1/2 months chasing them around to fix their work with no resolution yet.