New boiler installation by Glowgreen not completed but they are demanding payment court action

oldswanste

waamo said:

At this stage you are not expected to submit a comprehensive defence. What you must do is outline all the points you wish to rely on. You cannot, as a general rule, add new defence points after.

Later in the process you will be asked to submit a witness statement where you can expand on your defence. You cannot add new points in your witness statement. 

Thanks Waamo, This really helped. 

theoretica

You might also find gas safe helpful https://www.gassaferegister.co.uk/help-and-advice/complaints-report-an-illegal/gas-work-complaint/

waamo

Before you get to court you will be offered mediation. This will be arranged by the court and if agreement is reached will be legally binding.

On the face of things your position should be simple and relatively straightforward. Complete the job to a satisfactory standard and the work gets paid for. This kind of situation should be able to be solved before court as long as both parties have reasonable expectations.

J_J

Just to add to the good advice above ... at this stage the Claimant has filed a claim. You have acknowledged the claim (I hope?) and have until X date to file your defence. (What's the date on their claim form?)

Following that is the Defence Questionnaire (DQ) stage where you push for any hearing to be at your local court. After this you get to Witness Statement (WS) stage ... a letter from the court will provide the date by which both parties must file the WS with the court and serve on the other party. The hearing would then be (typically) 2 weeks later ... any hearing in these COVID times is likely to be a telephone or video call hearing.

Any hearing is likely to be 6 months away - minimum. A hearing would only go ahead if the Claimant pays the hearing fee. Out of interest, what are the C claiming for? What value? (The filing and hearing fees are based on the value of the claim, and would form part of the costs they would claim).

oldswanste

waamo said:

Before you get to court you will be offered mediation. This will be arranged by the court and if agreement is reached will be legally binding.

On the face of things your position should be simple and relatively straightforward. Complete the job to a satisfactory standard and the work gets paid for. This kind of situation should be able to be solved before court as long as both parties have reasonable expectations.

Thank again waamo,
Its been a very busy week but I'll be using this weekend to file my defence. I sent a subject access request on the 3rd of January and have not had a reply from either department it was sent to. I have chased this today sending again to all parties I have ever dealt with as well as the customer relations team.
Assuming we mediate before going to court, do you think it would be advantageous at this stage to issue my own costs (if that's even possible)  so as to encourage mediation from their side. I could acquire several quotes to repair the brick work and render as well as time spent so far dealing with the matter, additional days taken off work to allow the boiler to be installed etc? If this is possible, should these costs be added to my defence or is there a specific time I am allowed to issue these costs? To be clear about my expectations, I simply want the boiler to be tested properly and a compliance certificate. I would also like the damage to my house to be repaired. I have no desire to knock money off the bill etc. I am happy to pay in full once the work is complete.
Thanks,

oldswanste

Thanks for the reply J_J,

J_J said:

Just to add to the good advice above ... at this stage the Claimant has filed a claim. You have acknowledged the claim (I hope?) and have until X date to file your defence. (What's the date on their claim form?)

I have until the 13th to file my defence. I called MCOL to confirm this.

Out of interest, what are the C claiming for? What value? (The filing and hearing fees are based on the value of the claim, and would form part of the costs they would claim).

They are claiming for £1,408.80 which is the remaining balance of the installation and £70.00 court fee. However, it also states on the claim form that " The claimant claims interest under section 69 of the county court act 1984 at the rate of 8% a year from 29/0720 to 10/12/20 on £1,408.80 and also interest at the same rate up to the date of judgement or earlier payment at a daily rate of £0.31.

Thanks again for the breakdown of processes. I'm completely new to this so this kind of advice is really well received.

waamo

oldswanste said:

waamo said:

Before you get to court you will be offered mediation. This will be arranged by the court and if agreement is reached will be legally binding.

On the face of things your position should be simple and relatively straightforward. Complete the job to a satisfactory standard and the work gets paid for. This kind of situation should be able to be solved before court as long as both parties have reasonable expectations.

Thank again waamo,
Its been a very busy week but I'll be using this weekend to file my defence. I sent a subject access request on the 3rd of January and have not had a reply from either department it was sent to. I have chased this today sending again to all parties I have ever dealt with as well as the customer relations team.
Assuming we mediate before going to court, do you think it would be advantageous at this stage to issue my own costs (if that's even possible)  so as to encourage mediation from their side. I could acquire several quotes to repair the brick work and render as well as time spent so far dealing with the matter, additional days taken off work to allow the boiler to be installed etc? If this is possible, should these costs be added to my defence or is there a specific time I am allowed to issue these costs? To be clear about my expectations, I simply want the boiler to be tested properly and a compliance certificate. I would also like the damage to my house to be repaired. I have no desire to knock money off the bill etc. I am happy to pay in full once the work is complete.
Thanks,

If you mean costs associated with the case ie lost work hours then you submit a costs schedule at the hearing. You can only claim quantifiable losses and costs should be a bare minimum. It is completely at the judge's discretion as to what they award.

If you mean costs as in to finish the job to an acceptable standard then that would form part of a counterclaim. I suspect you have already said you are not counterclaiming on your paperwork? Personally if you just want the money to get it done I would treat that as a separate issue bearing in mind if you go to court and win this one you've effectively got that money anyway. I wouldn't be getting quotes there doesn't seem any point at this stage.

If they refuse to go to mediation that is their right. You shouldn't try to influence them. As I said earlier this case should be well suited to mediation as on the face of it it is a straightforward dispute.

oldswanste

Hi everyone,
Just a quick update. I have received completed DQ from the claimant and downloaded a copy of my own to send to CCBCAQ@Justice.gov.uk. I also have to send a copy to the claimant.

My question is this. Can I email a copy to the claimant at the email they provided for contact in their own completed DQ or do I have to post it?

Le_Kirk

If the claimant has previously communicated with you by e-mail it is perfectly OK to do the same - especially given we are in the middle of a pandemic and are advised not to go out, even to post a letter!

oldswanste

Hi All, A quick update on this. Although we had agreed a date for mediation, Glowgreen never showed up to the appointment and kept me and the mediator waiting. They finally had one of their representatives tell the mediator that no one was available to attend the meeting. Pretty poor show and really frustrating as we are now going to court. I have been desperately trying to get Gas Safe to come and inspect my installation and finally had an inspector visit on Friday last week. He found several issues with the installation in general and one issue that made the boiler 'at risk' something to do with high/low levels of Co in the flu. Anyway, Glowgren have been bombarding me with phonecalls and emails to try to stop this from going to court but when I ask them to carry out the repairs they wont commit to doing it. They are coming at the angle that they are doing me a favour by offering for me to pay them and they will cancell the court action but it looks to me as though they are getting edgy now. One of their operatives said he wanted to try to resolve the case because 'he didnt want to have to write out a big long witness statement'. 
After almost a year they finally uploaded a gas safe certificate to the Gas Safe register website but it had the wrong date, wrong engineers name and the wrong gas type (they said mains gas but my boiler is LPG).

My question is this: Can I seek an extension of time on the submission of my witness statement? 

My witness statement is due on the 26th but I am waiting for the Gas safe inspectors report to come through so I can include this as evidence, I am also waiting on a copy of the certificate which I have not yet seen. I only know the details are wrong because Gas Safe told me. Gas safe are sending this in the post too.

Any help would be gratefully appreciated.

One further question which I suppose is of lesser importance/urgency. What can I personally claim against Glowgreen? I am so cross about this whole thing and it feels completely unfair that they can take up so much of my time and energy and create so much stress without any real consequence even if I win. What are my options if any?

Thanks again for reading and for any advice offered.