Landscapers completed job incorrectly - issue with paving

williamgriffin

brumbill said:

Jeepers_Creepers said:

Cool - that's pretty conclusive!

Do you have Legal Protection on your home insurance? This seems like the kind of open-an-shut case they'll be happy to take on. Failing that, you may need to put a letter together yourself outlining the landscaper's options; they redo it all correctly - and then you will pay them - or you'll employ someone else to do so and sue them for the total cost, including any tiles damaged during removal. 

Tell them you've had an independent surveyor who works for the tile supplier and his report confirms it's been incorrectly done, and you have also been advised by the TE of the tile supplier that's it's incorrect (can you ask him to put this in writing?).

Make it clear that when you take legal action, it is virtually guaranteed to succeed; the landscaper has no case. 

Date it, and give them one week to respond. It should be sent in a way that delivery can be demonstrated. 

So now we’ve given them the time to respond and they haven’t, what’s the next step? Is it telling them we will get another company to do it and they will have to pay them?

Start your court proceedings or get another company in, pay them and court to recover the money.

brumbill

in terms of letters, we sent the initial letter and heard nothing, and then a second letter giving them another 7 days to respond before we get quotes from other firms and claim the money back. They replied after 9 days, and are still only saying they will do part of the work (issues with crumbling wall mortar and drainage). Do they have to do all or nothing and do we have to accept this even though they’ve missed two (very fair) deadlines?

tacpot12

You can agree with them that they can do the items they agree are a problem and you can sue them for the rest of the work if you wish to do so. From their perspective, they would want to know that if the do the work they want to do then this is an end to the matter. The question is whether they will insist on you signing something to say that if they do the work they want to do then that is all that needs doing. 

I would suggest you say something like "I'm glad you have agreed to return to fix the wall mortar and drainage, please let me know when you can start. We still need to discuss x and y as I still maintain that they have not been done correctly."

brumbill

And does it matter that they have missed all the deadlines they have set? Am I now within my rights to say it’s too late and we will get someone else to do it and charge them instead?

they will not budge on the main works of the incorrectly laid slabs. And, frankly, as the entire job has problems with it, I don’t trust them to do anything properly second time round. They seem to be keen to come back and do something just to get money out of us - but to pay someone else to sort the problems they have cause is going to cost far more than the cost of the original job, which means we will have to get even further out of pocket before trying to claim anything back from them

Titus_Wadd

I don't think I'd want them back to do any further work. 

brumbill

I suppose what I want to know is, legally, do we have to have them back now?

brumbill

I’ve now also discovered that the top bricks on pretty much the entire wall are loose and coming away - the mortar is like sand. And, on top of this, we’ve had issues with our oil boiler which we were unable to sort because they conveyed over a filter which we explicitly told them we needed access to for annual servicing. We’ve had to pay nearly £300 to get this sorted

do we have to get them back to fix the issues they caused? I don’t trust them one bit

fezster

I can see you have not had many responses to your query - hopefully someone will be able to guide you.

I'd recommend you contact citizens advice and have a read of this page: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/getting-home-improvements-done/problem-with-home-improvements/. Once you have followed the correct procedure, you can get someone else in to fix the work and sue the original trader for your losses.

fezster

More specifically - you need a Letter Before Action and allow the trader 14 days to respond: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-courts/legal-system/small-claims/making-a-small-claim/

brumbill

We haven’t paid the original company anything yet as there are problems with every bit of the work. So if I now got someone else in to rectify any of it, would the original company have claim for any payment? Materials or anything? Rectifying everything will cost significantly more than the original works had they been done correctly first time, so I do t want to give them any money above the minimum they are entitled to as we will end up having to claim back and then some