Roofer gone with the cash

Flatulentoldgoat

Had a roofer recently repair my roof. Work was done and leak fixed, sorted. Pleased with the quality of the work. Unfortunately, my neighbours decided to get their roof done too and their tradesmen trespassed on to my roof and damaged it (and sent me the video) all reported to the police and thankfully my insurance has taken care of it.

So my insurance company asked me to get an estimate which I did from the original roofer. Insurer sent me the money (bank transfer) and I then transferred this over to my roofer. Two months on I'm still waiting for him to turn up.

What can I do?

Penguin_

Why on earth would you transfer the money to the roofer before the work was completed?

comeandgo

Don’t know where you are in the country but it’s winter and up here there has not been much opportunity for roofers to work on roofs.

TELLIT01

Have you tried to contact him?  If so, how often and what response have you had.

Flatulentoldgoat

They keep telling me they'll arrive next week, next wednesday, etc etc. Obviously no shows each time. Been going on for weeks which is frustrating as they'd done a good job on the roof.

TELLIT01

I don't know where you live, but round here the weather has been awful for weeks.  We are having our conservatory roof replaced and have been told they are weeks behind due to the weather.  It may simply be a case that the roofer is poor at communicating rather than dodgy.  Is the rain getting in or is it more cosmetic damage that needs to be repaired?

ic

Why've you paid for the job up front?  Granted there may be materials required, but ultimately it'll mostly be labour which you've not had yet.

Jeepers_Creepers

At least you should have a paper trail for all this.

Do you have LegProt on your insurance too? Cool - call them up and tell them what's happening. Ask if they'll send the roofer a 'letter of intent', or a 'letter that'll scare the $%&@' out of them.

The guy will need new pants when he receives this.

He's almost certainly just being lackadaisical about it all, so needs a kick up the whatsit.

williamgriffin

Jeepers_Creepers said:

At least you should have a paper trail for all this.

Do you have LegProt on your insurance too? Cool - call them up and tell them what's happening. Ask if they'll send the roofer a 'letter of intent', or a 'letter that'll scare the $%&@' out of them.

The guy will need new pants when he receives this.

He's almost certainly just being lackadaisical about it all, so needs a kick up the whatsit.

Do you really believe that to be the case?

twopenny

Roofing repairs are a long way behind because of the weather as said but they shouldn't be giving you a time and not letting you know they're not coming.

I guess they aren't in a hurry because they already have the money.

If the roof damage likely to cause more problems unless done soon you could try asking for the return of the (insurance) money and say that you really need to get someone else. But then you'd risk them actually doing that and you'd have to find someone else and go to the end of their list.

But 2mts isn't that long the way things are at the moment especially if it's a smallish job.

Jeepers_Creepers

williamgriffin said:

Do you really believe that to be the case?

'Believe'? No. I don't believe anything without evidence.

'Expect'? Yes. This roofer has already done work for the OP; "Work was done and leak fixed, sorted. Pleased with the quality of the work." So I suspect the chances are that the roofer is just taking advantage a bit; knows he has this job in the bag, and is therefore prioritising other jobs. He's too embarrassed to keep in touch as he knows he's being unfair to the OP. That's likely 'all'. I reckon a follow-up letter from the insurance co. will make him ck his breeches. 

Or even a text from the OP giving him 2 days to respond before he hands it over to his insurance co's Legal Dept. The legal term is, I believe, 'a firework up the arris'.