Complaint against cleaning company Help!

cultaine

Hi Looking for advice

Hired a cleaning company to clean my Fathers house after he passed away in May so that it could be put up for sale. Paid £271 to company for a deep clean plus extras. Cleaning was abismal if they did any that is . Kitchen cupboards the cleaned only the shelves you could see, no skirting boards done ,still dirt in bathroom etc etc etc. I have pictures of everything they should have done but dident. I have been intouch with trading standards and with there advice sent a letter of complaint and a letter of mediation . Both of which the company has ignored. Traiding standards now say to take them to court . What im asking is is it going to cost me more money than the refund I am wanting back ?

QrizB

See this CAB page. Very roughly it goes:

• Send a Letter Before Action (there are templates avaiable online); then
• Start a legal claim with Money Claims Online.

The letter will only cost the price of postage. The claim will cost £35 (or so this webpage says) but you might be able to claim that back too.

tacpot12

The initial claim fee can be just the start of the fees. It is quite likely that you will need to enforce payment. If so, there will be further fees of at least another £83. So you are likely to not get much more than about half your money back. 

If the areas that they did clean were not cleaned adequately I would sue them, but be aware that it is very difficult to capture the level of cleanliness or lack thereof on photos. A series of photos where you have wiped surfaces that have been cleaned with a clean white cloth may show their failings better.

missile

It may not be worth the effort. However, last time I took a "rouge trader" to court, he did not turn up and I was awarded costs.

It is unclear why OP paid for shoddy service. Perhaps they paid in advance?

OP might get some satisfaction by naming and shaming on social media. A bad review may cost the trader more than £291 in lost business.

[Deleted User]

missile said:

It may not be worth the effort. However, last time I took a "rouge trader" to court, he did not turn up and I was awarded costs.

It is unclear why OP paid for shoddy service. Perhaps they paid in advance?

OP might get some satisfaction by naming and shaming on social media. A bad review may cost the trader more than £291 in lost business.

 Agree, find their Facebook page, Twitter, trust pilot etc and leave bad reviews 

Langtang

We've just gone through this with my in-law's house a week or so ago. We were very lucky, and they did an excellent job but we had to be ultra-specific with them about what we wanted them to do. When they came out to look at the job, we pinpointed everything we wanted done and how we wanted it done and asked them if they understood. We'd been told that you had to do this, otherwise it would be difficult to prove after the event if they'd missed anything.
I think that social media can be a wonderful bargaining chip to getting them to play ball. I would mention to them that you're going to name and shame before you do, just to give them a chance to make amends.

missile

OP posted on the 06th and has not been online since