small claim help please

Gofer1

hi, wondering if anyone can help advise me please
I noticed a gas leak after a boiler service, I called another company (who had installed the boiler) who confirmed /fixed the leak, wrote me an invoice stating it was due to previous service and I called/emailed the original company to let them know this had happened and say that I should not have to pay for their unsafe work with my evidence attached (including pictures of the worn washer they had used).
They still sent me an invoice and are taking me to the small claims court over non payment. 
It is a relatively small sum of money but I don't want to back down as they were at fault and I could have come to harm due to the gas leak.
my questions
1) what are my chances of success ? 
2) if I lose will this effect my credit rating ? 
3) any other advice 
thanks 

Sandtree

1) Depends on the quality of your and their evidence. How much was their invoice? How much was the second companies? Why didnt you call the first company back?

2) You have 30 days to pay the judgement, if you pay in full within that time then nothing goes on your credit history. If you dont pay within 30 days then a CCJ will be logged with the credit reference agencies and will impact your chances of getting credit (ignoring courts is not a good idea)

user1977

As above, it would have been better to call back the last person who touched the boiler - they could legitimately argue they would have sorted it for free.

When you say they "are taking me to the small claims court" - are they actually? Or have they just threatened to?

longjohnjohnson

Sandtree said:

1) Depends on the quality of your and their evidence. How much was their invoice? How much was the second companies? Why didnt you call the first company back?

2) You have 30 days to pay the judgement, if you pay in full within that time then nothing goes on your credit history. If you dont pay within 30 days then a CCJ will be logged with the credit reference agencies and will impact your chances of getting credit (ignoring courts is not a good idea)

Seems fairly low given they employed the company who installed it to come and fix it.  They obviously don't want to foot the bill so they're going to point the blame at the other company, who point the finger back at the ones who installed it.  OP would have been far better off getting an independent gas engineer to come out (independent of this situation) who doesn't have a vested interest in directing blame away from themselves.

Gofer1

they are actually taking me to the small claims track in the county court -
I agree with hindsight I should have asked them to repair their mistake-however, it had been really difficult to get hold of them in the first place and I felt that getting the issue sorted as a priority was the most important thing where gas was concerned. 
My evidence is the invoice from the second engineer which details the fault that was fixed that he specifies was the result of the first service, also pictures of the washer, the inside of the boiler where the first technician had not connected an air inlet pipe. All this was sent via email on the day of the visit of the second technician. 
The second technician I have paid. The first technician I did not pay the invoice of -the claim is £150 in total. 
My argument is I think that there was a material breach of contract in that there was unsafe/dangerous work resulting in a gas leak so therefore I should not be obligated to pay. 
I have tried to get legal advice from the CAB which has been useless and a lawyer offered to look at the case for £600 so I am thinking of simply leaving it up to the court but am a bit nervous about letting it proceed. 

Sandtree

You dont say what the two invoices are but if, for example, the first invoice was for £400 and the second company invoice was for £150 then you have no grounds for paying nothing... the minimum you should pay would be £250 being the difference between the two invoices so your total paid is the £400 you'd originally anticipated and agreed to

Do you have Legal Expenses insurance on your Home Insurance? They will give you general advice, they are probably unlikely to be willing to represent as policies have clauses saying the costs have to be proportional and if the claim is £150 then this test is likely to fail.

Gofer1

so you are saying that even if someone does dangerous substandard work they need to have payment? I find that very hard to believe

Sandtree

Gofer1 said:

so you are saying that even if someone does dangerous substandard work they need to have payment? I find that very hard to believe

Lets take it to an obvious extreme... you pay someone to totally re-landscape your garden, they replace all the fences, plant 200 trees, bushes & plants, build a pond and lay a new patio for £10,000. You discover the new step they built out onto the patio is loose and a trip hazard so get someone else out to fix it for £200... Are you really thinking the unsafe step gets you out of paying towards the £10,000 bill??

You still havent given the two invoice prices but assuming the second invoice is less than the price of the first one then they made a single error and there is an argument that they shouldn't be paid for that aspect but that doesnt absolve paying for the rest of the work done. The reason its only an argument is because you didnt give them a chance to rectify it.

Gofer1

I am not sure that the analogy works -the whole point of the service was to check the safety of the appliance and they singularly failed to do that -instead making it dangerous- for example a better analogy would be a car safety check causing the brakes to then fail 

Gofer1

the first invoice was £90 and the second was £72 btw 

Sandtree

Gofer1 said:

I am not sure that the analogy works -the whole point of the service was to check the safety of the appliance and they singularly failed to do that -instead making it dangerous- for example a better analogy would be a car safety check causing the brakes to then fail 

If you believe the sales pitch a service is more than just a safety check... to take your analogy if you prefer a car service will check the brakes but they'll have also checked all the fluids, replaced the oil filter etc so failed brakes alone doesnt stop the value of the rest of the service. 

Gofer1 said:

the first invoice was £90 and the second was £72 btw 

Given the de minimis difference difference in pricing its a bit of a moot point anyway.