Small Claims Court against tradesman

HK2023

Morning.

My partner and I bought a house at auction a couple of years ago which needed a full renovation. We hired a local plumber who was highly recommended on a local facebook group. He sent us a written quote which we agreed and he started work towards the end of 2021.

We agreed a number of thing, such as means to attach a back boiler stove and split zones. It fairly quickly became apparent that he wasn't very experienced but he was working with a more experienced plumber who seemed to be fairly well on top of things and keeping the job in check.

I asked him one day where the stove was going to attach and he replied you can't attach a boiler stove to an unvented system. I showed him stoves which were compatible and he said it wasn't something that he knew how to do. So my partner and I decided we would have someone else install a stove and take the price of the connection off the plumbers final bill. Eventually we opted to have a pellet stove attached to the system using the new gas boiler as a backup, and paid for the full installation ourselves.

Some time later I asked the plumber where the zones were seperated, since I couldn't see a seperate loop in the airing cupboard. He said if he'd forgotten to tell me he couldn't appologise enough but they hadn't been able to do a second zone as the extra pipe work would have diminished the structural integrity of the joists (bearing in mind I'm a carpenter) and also would have effected the mains pressure coning into the house. Which of course is nonsense. I discussed this with my partner and eventually we decided to purchase a thermostat system with wireless zonal radiator stats and that we would take the difference from the system we were going to use off his final bill.

As time went on he began taking less and less care of the house. Instead of taking up the floorboards carefully he was distroying them, he was also cutting the along the edge of stud walls instead of on the joists. He used an old flue pipe to vent the gas boiler and put it in the wrong place.

Towards the end of 2021 he gave us an invoice. I paid some of the invoice as he had two other people to pay and he instantly emailed to ask why we hadn't paid it in it's entirety. I told him that we wanted to be clear that the total, which was higher than the original quote, was for the entire first fix and that he would be coming back to complete it promptly, which he said yes to both. I followed this up in an email to make sure that I had his agreement written that this was the payment for the entire first fix.

After that it became very difficult to get him to come back. We still didn't have a working bathroom and my partners children didn't want to stay. The plumber said he was very busy and to let him know my work schedule so he could try and fit me in. He eventually came back while I was working abroad, first fixed the childrens bathroom, completely wrong, and then invoiced us again for the work, which I ignored.

I contacted him in September, having spent most of the year abroad working, to ask him to complete the first fix. He asked if I was aware that there was still an outstanding amount for the work he had done first fixing the kids bathroom and that once that was paid we could discuss further work. I replied saying we had already paid for the entire first fix, and discussed in a previous email conversation and his response was, I've now taken on full time employment in a different career and it would be impossible for me to continue the job. I asked for his full address so that we could commence legal action and we haven't heard from him since.

I've contacted a different plumber to ask if he could complete the work and he said that he couldn't certify someone elses work. So now it looks as though we are going to have to have the whole job redone.

We don't have his address as on the invoice he only put his name and the village he lived in. We would like to claim for the money we have spent on him and the damabe he's done to the house, the price difference between the two seperate thermostat systems and the inconvenience of having to live in a house we can't complete because he hasn't completed the agreed work.

Does anyone know what our options are and where to start since we don't have his details? We know he now working in public services locally.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

user1977

I haven't read the whole saga (don't think we need it!) but you need his name and address to do anything legal. Try employing a tracing agent to find him.

HK2023

user1977 said:

I haven't read the whole saga (don't think we need it!) but you need his name and address to do anything legal. Try employing a tracing agent to find him.

Don't think we need it?

HK2023

I'm not sure what information I should have included in my post. I've obviously not included personal information but have tried to be fairly thorough in including the issues.

If I was to use a tracing agent can this fee then be included in the small claims court claim?

user1977

HK2023 said:

user1977 said:

I haven't read the whole saga (don't think we need it!) but you need his name and address to do anything legal. Try employing a tracing agent to find him.

Don't think we need it?

Your problem at the moment is that you want to sue somebody whose address you don't have. It doesn't really matter what your claim is about.

And no, I don't think you can add the cost of a tracing agent to your claim.

HK2023

Oh I see. Ok, thanks for your help.

pinkshoes

Your first port of call is to find his details. Full name and address.


Have you done some detective work on Facebook? Have you looked to see if he is on Companies House? If you have a village name then that's a good start. Find a Facebook group for the village, perhaps even post under a different alias etc... or even take a dog for a walk round the village one evening and see if you can spot his van. 192.com ?

If you struggle to find anything on your own, then use an agency that will find him for you. Or post his name on here and see if anyone can find him for you.

HK2023

Thanks for that. We appear to have found his address on 192.com.

So what's the next step? We are going to keep the boiler and hot water tank that are installed but are presuming from what the other plumber we asked said that all the pipework is going to have to be removed and replaced. So do we just calculate the full figure less the retail cost of the two items mentioned, plus the extra amount that we have had to pay to uprate the system so that we can control the seperate zones?

macman

Is this a limited company, or a sole trader? if it's the former, then you must serve to the registered address at CH. If you have contracted with a ltd co. then suing the individual named will be thrown out by the court. 

user1977

macman said:

Is this a limited company, or a sole trader? if it's the former, then you must serve to the registered address at CH. If you have contracted with a ltd co. then suing the individual named will be thrown out by the court. 

OP says "on the invoice he only put his name and the village he lived in". If there's no mention of a limited company at the time of entering into the contract then he can't later claim to actually be a company.

tightauldgit

As much as I have sympathy and think you might well have a legitimate grievance I just want to point out that 'me and my partner decided we won't pay for that' is not really something that has legal standing so it's important that these things are documented and you can demonstrate that this was communicated to the contractor.