Rogue Roofer/ horrible neighbours

juliebunny

I'll try to simplify what has been a long and very stressful dealing with a roofer and neighbours. If you like a drama, this is one for you.

Back in May a neighbour was having her roof replaced, she was happy with the work so I asked them to do mine aswell. We live in a terrace of 5 houses which were all built with flat roofs (apparently the council ran out of money to do pitched roofs, or so I'm told). I'm number 2 in the row, nice neighbour is number 5 (so end of Terrace). For some reason known only to the council when they built these, the middle house (let's call number 3 of 5) doesn't have any drainage. Her roof is sloped towards the gulley in the middle of the roof, like the others, but instead of having a downpipe through the house (weird but always been ok) her roof slopes to my roof on one side and house number 4 on the other side (well that's the theory of how it should work anyway.)
Number 3 occupant is a cheapskate. Her roof has been leaking for years. She had a cheap fix done 2 years ago but it's been leaking since the start of this year and she's not getting it sorted. Her daughter told me the roof in her bedroom fell down over 6 months ago and they have a bucket under the leak. They are not broke and I know they own the house outright. They just never fix anything - had this over the years with fence etc and I ended up just sorting it for a peaceful life.

My new roof went on in May, I asked neighbour at No 3 did she want my roofer to quote for hers at which point I was basically told to mind my own business. In fact it got a lot worse than that with the neighbour at number 4 getting involved (since they were the cheapskate - allegedly roofer but probably roofing labourer - who had actually done the bodge on her roof - not relevant to my story but just sets the scene for the joy of where i live.) Had them screaming at me that I was taking business away from her partner and I was a nosey CU next Tuesday.

My roof was completed. Took me a lot of chasing to get the 'warranty' from the roofer, it was always 'in the other car/van etc'. Eventually got it, with wrong house number on. Ok we all make mistakes, got it again with right number on but didn't correctly specify the work done (no mention of the insulation - this became relevant for the EPC on my house later on.)

By this point, I'd decided to move house, due almost entirely to the awful neighbours (I've lived here 20 years.)

House goes on market, EPC marked down because I have no proof of roof insulation and despite requests to roofer to re-issue paperwork - nothing.

Asked roofer to transfer guarantee to new owner and he wants to charge me £299 + VAT - saying that the name has to be registered with his insurance and that's their fee. I have a friend who looked at the paperwork and just laughed - not an insurance backed guarantee, just his company paper stating work done and guaranteed by him. I have asked him numerous times for details of his insurance and he has declined to respond. He always claims to be busy/stressed/sick/kid is sick/trouble at another job, You name it, he's used it. 

Come the first heavy rains in August, the roof leaked prolifically. I should mention here that the roof never leaked before, I had it re-felted because it was 20 years old and well beyond it's life expectancy plus for the insulation. This started a long saga of trying to get him out to fix it / not coming /me chasing him/him being rude to me / turning up for ten minutes etc etc. I'm sure you know how this one goes. He changed the outlet (the bit where the water goes from the roof down into the drainpipe) as that was the area where the leak was and then later on painted some sort of fibre paint around the area. I know he did this as he sent me a photo. Keeps telling me he's not a scammer cos if he was he wouldn't keep coming back but boy was I hearing about it. He moans endlessly, voice messages, texts etc etc. Some have been really rude, and when I played them to friends to see if it was just me thinking this, they were beyond shocked.

Leak persists and eventually he says the water must be coming from neighbours house - her roof is known to leak, and it must be tracking under the original roof from hers and then down into my house at the lowest point. So I paid him upfront half for the price to do some additional work. I wanted to get quotes but he said if anyone else does work on the roof, it invalidates my guarantee. So I was pretty much over a barrel. After much delay, letting me down, not turning up, he sends out his 2 contractors to do the job on the one day I'm not here (odd that.) Messages me to say the work is done, send me the money. I told him I'll send him half the outstanding and the rest when he gives me some paperwork to warranty the new work - I'm still trying to sell my house at this point, buyer lined up but conveyancing taking forever. He has since HOUNDED me for the money, literally 5 times one day, up to 10pm at night. And guess what, the roof still leaks. He came out Monday of this week and went up there briefly, said there was a corner not down properly so he did that again. Rained again, leaked again. He told me he would come back yesterday, didn't turn up, supposed to come today, hasn't yet turned up. On Monday he said that if this doesn't work, he's done with it, he can't handle the stress of me keep calling him to say it's leaking (this is a very SHORT summary of all the drama) and that I need to get my neighbour to fix her roof (I've asked her about it twice, and she knows my issues/doesn't care.)

I'm trying to move house, and want the roof to be water-tight before I move. I've told him I'm moving -2nd December. 

I guess I'm just at a loss what to do now - I said to him that I paid him to fix the leak, not turn up, have a go and then give up because it was too hard, but he seems to have just thought it was a quick fix, easy money for him. I still owe him 25% of the work, he's got 75% of the money for a job that hasn't worked. Am I being unreasonable to expect the second job to have fixed the leak, to want paperwork or to have him turn up? He seems to be pretty much done with it now.
Should I be paying for his time, even though it's not fixed? This is what he seems to think, whereas I think he should have fixed it - my house is enduring untold damage, all of which I need to get fixed before I move. I've had to buy a dehumidifier which is running 24/7. 

If you got this far, well done, if you have any advice, most welcome. I've tried to get in touch with the CAB but haven't been able to speak to anyone yet as they are so busy. I've seen all the letters they recommend sending on their site - but I'm moving in a week and really not sure what to do. I know it's buyer beware but I wanted my house to be nice to hand over and I'm not willing to let my roofer walk all over me. I honestly feel let down and gaslighted by him, he has put untold pressure on me constantly to send him money, which I have done against my better judgement but just to get him off my back.

propertyrental

Get (2? 3?) quotes to remedy the problem - be that patching up or another new roof.

'Letter Before Action'.

Then moneyclaim online.

youth_leader

Has your community got a Facebook page you could ask for roofer recommendations urgently?  I am very sorry but think your roofer just doesn't have the expertise and if you sell like this your buyer could come back to you.

greenface2

might be your neighbours roof maybe . If youre moving next week I doubt that anything will get done but make sure youre honest with the new buyers 

diystarter7

OP
Sorry to read about the problems

I can't help you with what is happening
However, you state you chased the roofer for the warranty. I find roofers' warranties worthless unless they are insurance backed and only often good if roofer goes belly up. The only warranty re roofer I found good was word of mouth from the roofer we had used for a good 30 years now retired. We never had a problem but I just knew he would honour his word should things go wrong.

IMHO, roofers and paviours need to be regulated

juliebunny

Thanks all, had another weekend of hell with this so called roofer, him calling me at all hours over the weekend asking for money and calling me a liar when I said it's still leaking.
Have contacted other roofers for quotes but no one ever gets back to me!!
The buyer is actually a company so I might just have to let them sort it out and then invoice me at least they won't be as emotionally drained by it as I am it will just be business. Hopefully they have some trusted traders.
No amount of money is worth the hell he has put me through.
I think I got around 6 missed calls from him today and probably about 30 messages on WhatsApp. I haven't listened to most of them as I'm so triggered by hearing his voice I have to get a friend to do it.

I'm guessing his company is in trouble for him to be so desperate and when I looked on companies House it looks like there is a notice to deregister this company although I'm not sure what would be behind that and whether he could contest it. He told me today that he would void my warranty unless I sent the money by midday and this is on a Sunday !!!!!!.

As someone here said that warranty isn't worth the paper it's written on. He said it was insurance backed but pretty sure that's a lie as he refuses to provide details. 

This has been a very hard and expensive lesson learnt for me.
Searches on the internet for advice have shown me that I am by no means alone in having issues with roofers.
Having once lived with one, I should have known better...😖

I'm sure there are some very good roofers out there I just have yet to find one.