Need advice on awful bathroom renovation

MrTrevor

Hello, we are just looking for some advice if possible 😊 Back in December me and my partner brought a house together which needed 3 bathrooms renovated. We found a local tradesman on check a trade who came out to give us a quote for all 3 bathrooms, once we agreed and were happy with the quote he started doing the first bathroom (main bathroom), we quickly realised we were not happy with the bit of work he had done, we told him our concerns and he reassured us that he would sort the problem out, which he did. Once the first bathroom had been completed, we noticed water marks had appeared on our living room ceiling from the bathroom above. We contacted him to come out and resolve the issue as an emergency and he just came up with excuses and reasons for the leak other than this being down to his own carelessness. At this point we had paid him the overall total agreed for the main bathroom and had given him the deposit for the 2nd bathroom (en-suite), due to his response and his carelessness we decided to lay him off and have half our deposit back as he had already started to rip out the 2nd bathroom. He agreed to give us half of the deposit back but quickly after via texts advised he would not be able to give the money back until he started his next job as he had a family and bills to pay for etc. We needed the money back ASAP as we had 1 ripped out en-suite, 1 main bathroom with the leak he left us with and 1 further en-suite bathroom (non-functional).

We had some issues with him returning the money, ignoring any calls/text messages in an attempt to get the money back, so we decided to start a case with the small claims court in which he then returned our money and we went ahead in getting the 2 en-suite bathrooms completed by another tradesman.

After 2 months of moving and settling into the house we have only just got round to try and resolve the leak that he caused in the main bathroom, it has not been functional or been able to be used since we moved in 2 months ago. We got the same tradesmen who did our two en-suites to come out and have a look, who advised us there is more than 1 leak in the bathroom and we may need to re-do the pipework and re-seal around the bathtub. We are unsure where to go from here as its going to cost us a lot of money to get it fixed again. Because we have had issues with him previously and for obvious reasons do not want him to touch the bathroom but don’t know how to approach the situation as we feel like we shouldn’t be paying more money for the bathroom due to the damage he has caused.

Mutton_Geoff

Unfortunately you may have to put this down to gaining experience in choosing people to work on your house in future. To get some deposit money back as you have done is about as good as it will get. I don't think there is any benefit to your mental health or timescales to bother with the first guy ever again. Just move on and get the job done.

Apart from taking up and relaying the flooring, which isn't usually a plumbers job, some piping and tube of silicone is hardly going to be a lot of money. Many traders charge a premium for fixing other people's work, see if you can't negotiate better with your current contacts.

missile

An expensive lesson learned. Check a Trader is worthless. Better to go with personal recommendations from neighbours and friends.