Botched home improvements s75 and DPA

AnnaAnnaAnna

I had a some home improvements carried out by a company last year as part of a single piece of work totalling tens of thousands. Parts of the work have been bodged to a greater or lesser degree and the company have carried out some (unsuccessful) remedial work and are denying their errors on the others. I’m looking at a breach of contract claim and based on their behaviour to date I am almost certain the company will fabricate evidence. 

I paid the deposit with a credit card and am considering pursuing compensation through my bank. 

I have two questions. 

1- is it worth filing a subject access request to ascertain what they have on file just now and to help with proof if they do fabricate evidence? I’m a bit worried about antagonising them further but that ship may have sailed quite frankly! 

and 

2 - has anyone successfully claimed compensation through s75 for breach of contract for anything like this? I can provide  full documentation of what was agreed and what has been carried out but there was a lot of correspondence. Also, the company are (falsely) claiming that I instructed lots of the things that have been done in error and I’m worried about them potentially getting involved. 

TIA! First post here so sorry if this is in the wrong place etc. 

Sandtree

1) You could do a SAR with the building company if you want but what do you think it will show? I suspect most internal communication etc is done by phone calls etc of which there will be no recording/transcript to substantiate anything.

2) Lots of people make successful claims under S75... how much was the total bill? You mention tens of thousands. You'll need to prove what was agreed, whats actually been done and if you are claiming things are substandard etc then an independent report confirming they are substandard and the estimate to put it right.

AnnaAnnaAnna

Thanks, I’m thinking of the request to help prove if they create false documents when I make a claim. They told us a lot of untruths during the work and now seem to be constructing some pretty fantastic tales in an attempt to bully us into dropping our complaints. I thought that if I have everything they have on file then it will be hard to suddenly produce a damning document from nowhere at court. There was a lot of correspondence and I followed up a lot of meetings in writing so there is a vast amount of documentation. None of which substantiates any of what they are claiming now! 

The cost was high but under the £30K limit and I am fairly confident we can prove our position. We’re ordering an independent report which will help although that will only identify what has been carried out, the quality and cost of remedies, which I expect to be several thousand. I’ve already spent thousands on legal and other costs dealing with this and I’m loath to spend any more on lawyers if this gets dragged out through court so I thought s75 might be the least costly and stressful option. I just don’t want to end up fighting it all out twice…