Electrician Not Completing Work He Has Been Paid For

Smudge87

Hi,
I'm looking for some help for my mum before escalting anything with her electrician. My mum bought a new house and wanted sockets fitting. The electrician told her the whole house needed rewiring which she semi-understood from the survey being completed before she purchased. She paid in full for the rewiring and it was completed. The electrician asked her what she planned with the house as she had basically stripped it and she explained she was fitting a new bathroom and kitchen. He told her he could do both of those for her, she explained what she wanted, showed him the suite and the kitchen etc and he gave her a quote. She was happy with his price and told him she wanted to go ahead. He then gave her a different set of bank details (compared to the one for the electrical work) to pay for these jobs doing and she paid him in full. About a week later he told her he had injured his leg (which varied from hamstring to knee to a tendon) and was off work. He did however pop over to the house to 'do bits' like measure etc. It has now been 8 weeks and no other work has been completed. She is terrified of calling him out in case he disappears with her money but he just keeps saying he will be at the house on certain days and never shows up. Is there anything at all she can do or is it a lost cause because she did the bank transfer without any paperwork or guarantee?
Thank you

Aylesbury_Duck

Presumably she has his or his business's address?

If he continues to avoid your mum, she should write to him threatening small claims action, although she'll need to be clear on who or what company she contracted with.

m0bov

Was there a contract? Staged payments? I guess not. Any receipt for the payment? Sounds like he is doing the work "on the side", a sparky who is suddenly a kitchen/bathroom fitter?

Smudge87

m0bov said:

Was there a contract? Staged payments? I guess not. Any receipt for the payment? Sounds like he is doing the work "on the side", a sparky who is suddenly a kitchen/bathroom fitter?

No, she got him off one of those rate my builder type websites, everything was organised over the phone and text messages...I don't even think shes got a certificate confirming the electrics are now up to standard. I'm confident theres no contract or invoices, only text messages saying how much to pay, where to and the work that was completed or to be completed.
 Think hes got her by the short and curlys if I'm sadly honest...

Smudge87

Aylesbury_Duck said:

Presumably she has his or his business's address?

If he continues to avoid your mum, she should write to him threatening small claims action, although she'll need to be clear on who or what company she contracted with.

Thanks for that I'm fairly confident she has no invoices or receipts, literally just text messages confirming what work he did and how much then bank details for the payments.

Ectophile

Is this electrician actually a member of one of the registered electrician schemes?  If not, then it's a safe bet that none of the work has been recorded with the local council's Building Control department.

Smudge87

After doing some more indepth research of the electrician and his company it seems he is indeed a con man. Thank you for the advice from everyone.