Poor building work partial refund offered

BathMoney

Before Christmas, we had some building work done by a sole trader, recommended by some friends of ours.  His wife works with my wife (others at my wife's work have hired him).  It was during the lockdown I have been shielding and as we have also used him before we believed he would do a good job at a fair price.

He took on the task of repointing the abutment of the house, which needed doing as water is leaking into the adjoining garage roof (no cavity drip tray fitted).

He failed to rake out the joints properly I have had others plus a building inspector look at it informally and they confirm the work is very poor. 

He says it's an agree to disagree situation and has offered a refund of his time and materials (but not scaffolding costs).  I can now see his costs were too little for the job, clearly, he doesn't know how to repoint a wall.  

The repointing costs for the abutment will be £2,500+ inc scaffolding.

It's awkward as his wife works with mine, what would you do?

[Deleted User]

It depends on how much refund he is offering and if you think it's the best offer you will get from him, to me it looks reasonably fair but it's your decision.

BathMoney

Essentially he is leaving us in the hole for scaffolding costs, which is CIRCA £1,000.