Section 75 - Builder not completed work - Jan 2020 - UPDATE (2) OCTOBER 2020

comeandgo

Goodness, I hope the builder gets legal advice.  If the ltd company no longer exists  he is not personally liable.

hoth0416

born_again said:

jointly and severally liable with the retailer. So they share the debt. In reality. Card provider should not be losing out for someone elses fault.  Remember that lost funds have to come from somewhere.

comeandgo said:

Goodness, I hope the builder gets legal advice.  If the ltd company no longer exists  he is not personally liable.

Thanks both - this makes sense. I think the difficulty I face is feeling responsible if this ends up on the builder personally.
Hopefully that isn't the case - but nonetheless i will relay to the CC company and update you all accordingly.

Thanks for the help so far - it's much appreciated 

born_again

TBH, and may seem heartless. But which would you rather have.
Builder still trading and making a mess of other peoples work and you get no fix of your issue. So you lose £20K
Or you get your work fixed and a rouge builder taken off the streets?
Sometimes you have to think of yourself. You gave them plenty of chances to fix the problems.

hoth0416

Hi everyone! Wanted to give an update:

Background

For those that don't want to scroll to the first post - a quick summary:

• Builder and I agreed contract of £10k for work.
• Builder left work outstanding and certain bits unfinished. 
• Builder did not respond to me and company was dissolved.
• I filed s.75 claim with CC provider.

Update

Since my last post - I have obtained three independent inspections that all have looked at the original agreement and determined what was not done to a sufficient standard and what was not finished.

The costs that all three inspections determined to remove the bad work and fix was in the range of £25k-35k - a huge increase on the original invoice. The reason for this is that a large potion of the costs is to remove the bad work (substantial!) the original builder did, then new costs to put the work in properly.

CC company position

The CC company has told me they are satisfied I have a basis for a claim, and offered to refund the initial 10k + costs for the inspections.

My dilemma

Whilst a refund is helpful - that does not rectify my issue as the costs alone to get me back to square 1 are more than this. 

I would like to just get to the position I would have been in if the contract was completed properly.

My questions are:

1. Do I have any legal basis to seek more from the CC company - the law states "the creditor shall be entitled to be indemnified by the supplier for loss suffered by the creditor in satisfying his liability" - so surely the loss suffered would be what it takes to get me back to square 1 (no building work - can't see how this is possible) or what the original agreement should have gotten me to (my ideal scenario). 
2. Does the fact that the CC company saying I have a basis for a claim help me?
3. Is there any other support I could include in my response to the CC company?

Thanks!

jonesMUFCforever

Get paid for legal advice. If you have already paid £10k+ for reports one interview with a solicitor should see where you stand.

Malkytheheed

A bit of a "hindsight" questions but ... How many references did you get for this builder and have you told them about this? Seems crazy your friends / family / colleagues would recommend someone who would do this. 

hoth0416

jonesMUFCforever said:

Get paid for legal advice. If you have already paid £10k+ for reports one interview with a solicitor should see where you stand.

Thanks - that would be a next step - but I just wanted to see if anyone had any advice/experience prior to this. The CC is willing to refund the £10k I paid the builder and the few hundred for the reports, but I'm wondering if anyone has ever seen where the cost of rectification appears to be greater than the original invoiced cost.

Malkytheheed said:

A bit of a "hindsight" questions but ... How many references did you get for this builder and have you told them about this? Seems crazy your friends / family / colleagues would recommend someone who would do this. 

They were CheckATrade recommended - of course wouldn't have gone with them had I known..! 

eddddy

hoth0416 said:

1. Do I have any legal basis to seek more from the CC company - the law states "the creditor shall be entitled to be indemnified by the supplier for loss suffered by the creditor in satisfying his liability" - so surely the loss suffered would be what it takes to get me back to square 1 (no building work - can't see how this is possible) or what the original agreement should have gotten me to (my ideal scenario). 

S75 makes the CC company jointly liable for breach of contract by the builder. A remedy for breach of contract is damages:

Thus the overriding aim of an award of damages arising from a breach of a contractual obligation is to put the innocent party 'so far as money can do it…in the same situation…as if the contract had been performed' (Robinson v Harman)

Link: https://www.lexisnexis.com/uk/lexispsl/disputeresolution/document/393747/5CK4-1SG1-F18B-703K-00000-00/Contractual_breach_damages_and_remedies_overview

So based on what you say, the CC company should be paying you enough money for you to pay somebody else to do all the work that the builder contractually agreed to do - i.e. £25k - £35k.

If the CC company won't pay, ultimately you can make a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service or take the CC company to court.

 

hoth0416

eddddy said:

S75 makes the CC company jointly liable for breach of contract by the builder. A remedy for breach of contract is damages:
So based on what you say, the CC company should be paying you enough money for you to pay somebody else to do all the work that the builder contractually agreed to do - i.e. £25k - £35k.

If the CC company won't pay, ultimately you can make a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service or take the CC company to court.

Thanks so much for this. I realised I copied the wrong part of the law into my original message - I should have copied subsection (1) - "any claim against the supplier in respect of a misrepresentation or breach of contract, he shall have a like claim against the creditor, who, with the supplier, shall accordingly be jointly and severally liable to the debtor"

But you got there anyway and this is the exact point - that the result of a breach of contract where a party is liable should be a 'remedy' . And you've provided the support that "remedy" should be putting me in the position of what the original builder agreed to do. So a huge thanks as this was exactly what I was after!

Noted on the ombudsman route - I think I do have a good case as whilst it's a large amount, I have all of the evidence, have mitigated all losses, and (think) I have not fallen into the usual traps (given the previous builder opportunity to rectify, sufficient debtor-creditor-supplier link, obtained independent evidence etc.). My only concern is that the CC rejects and I'm sat on this for two years whilst the Ombudsman gets around to my case....!

I think it's helpful that the CC's first offer was a full refund, which shows they do see merit in the claim...!

I will respond to the CC company and keep you all updated.

born_again

hoth0416 said:

I think it's helpful that the CC's first offer was a full refund, which shows they do see merit in the claim...!

I will respond to the CC company and keep you all updated.

Is that a full refund of the payment on the credit card?
If that is the case then they will be doing a chargeback. Which can be contested.
And is in no way a admission of any merit other than it meets the chargeback criteria.