Rights of consumer

Dewdrops1420

eskbanker said:

sheramber said:

You did not have to accept his price. You could have got rwo or three  quotes for the job.

I had a patio laid last year . One quote was £10,000. The second quote was £1500.

Guess which one I chose?

Often dangerous to equate cheapest with best, if that's what you're implying!  Obviously you know the rest of the story, but faced with two such divergent quotes, I'd assume that the cheaper one was underpricing the job, with potential implications for quality of workmanship and/or materials - having said that, as OP has found, paying top dollar is no guarantee of a good job either though....

Same happened to us…poor quality but high price…rest we did for good quality and actual price..we weren’t lucky enough to find him sooner

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

OP before small claims you'd need to send a letter before action detailing the problems with the patio and requesting it's resolved within say 28 days or you'll seek a price reduction via small claims to correct the work.

For £2500 you'll pay £115 filing fee, I think another £50 to have the case heard and if you lost the other party may be able to claim costs up to around £90 so you'll have a risk of around £250 to go to small claims.

If you win you'll have to enforce the judgement, as they are an LTD their personal possessions (car, house, etc) can't be taken to pay the debt. 

If they have a company van it might be on finance, if they have no real assets you'll find it near impossible to get the money.

You have to look at this from an objective viewpoint without the frustration and sense of injustice clouding your decision, which I understand is difficult but it is better   

No one wants to see the first guy get away with taking good money for a bad job but equally no one wants to see you suffer a lot of stress and more costs if the prospect of getting any money back is not in your favour. 

You've said your new landscaper told you the job should a have been £2000 but they want £2500 to put it right, can you tell us what they have said is wrong with the work and what they will do to correct it.

sheramber

eskbanker said:

sheramber said:

You did not have to accept his price. You could have got rwo or three  quotes for the job.

I had a patio laid last year . One quote was £10,000. The second quote was £1500.

Guess which one I chose?

Often dangerous to equate cheapest with best, if that's what you're implying!  Obviously you know the rest of the story, but faced with two such divergent quotes, I'd assume that the cheaper one was underpricing the job, with potential implications for quality of workmanship and/or materials - having said that, as OP has found, paying top dollar is no guarantee of a good job either though....

On the contrary. An expensive price does not mean a better job.

The job was dome to my satisfaction and gave me what I wanted with no problems.
 This local  company have been in existence for many years and have many excellent reviews. 

No payment up front either.

tightauldgit

Dewdrops1420 said:

sheramber said:

You did not have to accept his price. You could have got rwo or three  quotes for the job.

I had a patio laid last year . One quote was £10,000. The second quote was £1500.

Guess which one I chose?

Yes but I didn’t get any other landscapers..many will say yes and never turn up to see the garden and many will say they don’t have availability.
These people come within seconds of our call and found few reviews as well so we thought fine. Many people advised us to go to Indian Punjabi landscapers as they charge less and not English but such Punjabi’s never existed in this area.

We thought by spring kids should be able to use the garden well so we need to fix this ASAP.

Just for future reference if you can't find contractors easily and one turns up at your door touting for work or, as here, answers your call surprisingly quickly it's usually because they're not very good at their jobs and nobody else will use them. 

tightauldgit

Dewdrops1420 said:

MikeJXE said:

It's sad to say if you are going to fight with these people instead of trying to reason with them, then you are on a hiding to nothing.

Whatever was said at the start and the quote is your word against theirs, matching slabs can mean anything. Paying for any work up front is a big no no, any advance payment should only relate to materials on site 

I did say in my previous post the chosen slabs surfaces are inclined to hold water and difficult to drain, therefore need a greater fall that you haven't got. 

You have already been advised going to court is a slim to zero chance of winning and very costly, the results even if you win doesn't mean you will get paid.

IMO you would be best to listen to the advice in previous posts and put it down to bad luck, moving on to another landscaper may not solve the problem and you may well be out of pocket by another couple of thousand, a guarantee on groundwork's won't be worth the paper it's written on. 

Your choice, good luck 

So you are saying I should leave it and let the water puddle and I have young children who might slip and fall down also.
They said advance is to buy matierals but we found that it was the actual cost for the full work any other honest landscaper would have taken. Citizens advise said we have to pay the full amount if we need to fight our case to fix our issues or refund else the trader can sue us in court even if it’s an exorbitant amount.
We saw many posts in google where landscapers were being fined heavily by the court for similar cases so we are expecting that they will try to mediate atleast when they know we are serious about it. We can always expose them in social media and other market places also and I’m very good in following it up for the next ten years and will make sure that they will need to leave this area for further business.
There are cases where trading standards have initiated case against such people on court.
But you are saying they won’t fix or refund even after court says so. we would like to see where this is leading to and not feel like considering this as bad luck and fix it by our hard earned money. They have already taken 2000£ extra from us so it shouldn’t be a problem at all and citizens advice has assured me with all the steps.

I will post the end result here even if you hear from me after many months.
We have enough brain to not spend exorbitant money again but I will make sure that the landscapers face utter inconvenience just like how they have fooled us.

This seems a bit confused about how our court system works. If you take him to court to get some money back he won't be fined anything and trading standards won't be involved that's a completely different kind of action. 

It may be if he has a track record of this kind of thing that trading standards will get involved at some point but that's their decision and won't help you get anything back. 

Dewdrops1420

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

OP before small claims you'd need to send a letter before action detailing the problems with the patio and requesting it's resolved within say 28 days or you'll seek a price reduction via small claims to correct the work.

For £2500 you'll pay £115 filing fee, I think another £50 to have the case heard and if you lost the other party may be able to claim costs up to around £90 so you'll have a risk of around £250 to go to small claims.

If you win you'll have to enforce the judgement, as they are an LTD their personal possessions (car, house, etc) can't be taken to pay the debt. 

If they have a company van it might be on finance, if they have no real assets you'll find it near impossible to get the money.

You have to look at this from an objective viewpoint without the frustration and sense of injustice clouding your decision, which I understand is difficult but it is better   

No one wants to see the first guy get away with taking good money for a bad job but equally no one wants to see you suffer a lot of stress and more costs if the prospect of getting any money back is not in your favour. 

You've said your new landscaper told you the job should a have been £2000 but they want £2500 to put it right, can you tell us what they have said is wrong with the work and what they will do 

The new guy said the work is worth 2000£ and slab cost is 500£ so since we need matching slabs , to change the slabs extra money hence 2500£ .But he said he will give 10 yr guarantee and he explained everything in writing where it went wrong and what is needed to correct it in his company letterpad. So proof is there.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

What did he say about the water pooling OP? 

Dewdrops1420

This is similar to our case and it looks like we will be favoured. Citizens advice never told me it’s difficult like how here people say.
”
Circumstancesoutsideofourcontrol “article in disputeresolutionombudsman

I can’t paste link here so mentioned the article above

Dewdrops1420

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

What did he say about the water pooling OP? 

Who? First or second?

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Dewdrops1420 said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

What did he say about the water pooling OP? 

Who? First or second?

Second landscaper