Shoddy house renovation work

sam1970

Hi All..I will try to keep the story short and I will appreciate advice.

Last year I contracted a small company to renovate an old house I bought. The company subcontracts all needed professionals (plumbers, electricians..etc). Within two weeks from the end of the 8 months long work problems started:
- Failing sockets, electric cuts. (Had full rewiring). Independent assessor report commissioned by electricians scheme (STROMA) confirmed unsatisfactory electrical work.
- Water leaks in two newly installed bathrooms-had to strip them off and retile and install.
- Newly installed boiler failing after repeat faults within 8 months of installation. British Gas confirmed faulty installation as the cause.
- Newly laid floor tiles all moving and cracking and I had few tilers looking at them and they all agreed poor workmanship.
- The gas installer subcontracted by the company was not gas safe and I have now reported him to HSE.

I wrote to the company director but not holding my breath plus I do not want these cowboys back in the house as I lost trust in them. Ideally I would like him to cover the cost of someone else sorting out the mess he left. Sorting all the above will cost over 10K so do I go to small claims court? Or instruct a solicitor to start legal proceedings?

hollydays

At any point did you ask them to rectify the faults?

sam1970

I did. Came back twice to sort out some problems but caused more problems and stopped responding.

tacpot12

1) Are they still trading and do they have any money that you could collect from them?
2) Do they have an Professional Liability Insurance?
3) Do you have any legal cover as part of your home insurance. If you do, call them first and ask them to handle your claim.
4) If you don't have any legal cover, you are likely to need some advice from a solicitor, but if you instruct a solicitor to run the claim, you might not see much of any money that is collected from the company. You are better running the claim yourself and paying a solicitor to answer the odd question that you can't find the answer to online. E.g. how do I get expert testimony as to the cause of the problems into court. How many estimates do I need to get for each repair? How do I present my costs? Am I better off using MCOL or paper forms?

You might have a look at the YouTube videos by Redwood Legal.

sam1970

Thank you for your detailed reply. I do have legal cover with my home insurance but this policy started inarch 2019 with a new insurer while the work was done in 2018. Will they still deal with it?