Plasterer damaged my fireplace and denies it

Ariz

I engaged the services of a decorator and plasterer (who was his friend).  The day after the plasterer finished i noticed that my limestone fireplace (brand new) had been cracked in half, the only people in the room during the work was him and his son.  Either something heavy has been dropped on it, or a ladder placed on and stood on, he denies this.  This is costing me £1600 to replace.  I have contacted the plasterer who denies it, said he would come round to look but never did, making excuses that it was badly fitted, etc.  I suspect the guy does not have liability
insurance, what can i do?  We have been through hell the past year and a half with house going on fire and getting refurbished which is still ongoing.  We cannot afford this extra expense, any advice

Alderbank

Ariz said:

I engaged the services of a decorator and plasterer (who was his friend).  The day after the plasterer finished i noticed that my limestone fireplace (brand new) had been cracked in half, the only people in the room during the work was him and his son.  Either something heavy has been dropped on it, or a ladder placed on and stood on, he denies this.  This is costing me £1600 to replace.  I have contacted the plasterer who denies it, said he would come round to look but never did, making excuses that it was badly fitted, etc.  I suspect the guy does not have liability
insurance, what can i do?  We have been through hell the past year and a half with house going on fire and getting refurbished which is still ongoing.  We cannot afford this extra expense, any advice

Welcome to the forum, Ariz.

You claim on your household insurance. They will ask you what happened and they might possibly try to offset the claim against your tradesmen's public liability insurance but that would be up to them.

DE_612183

It's going to be difficult to prove someone else did it - basically your word against his.

If it was a reputable company you may have some comeback - but some blokes friend - probably not.

Have you spoken to the decorator about it - he may not want to have his reputation tarnished by this, but I doubt anyone is going to hold their hands up for £1600.

cymruchris

Your challenge is that it might 'look like' something has happened to it - or that it's 'likely that they did it' (and you're probably not far wrong) - but you have no evidence that that's what actually happened. One for your home insurance possibly.

Ariz

Home insurance will not cover as someone else did I have photos of before he started work (fire) and after, no common decency, probably has no liability insurance, which self employed people should have, plus insurance already forked out for cost of rebuild of house                                                       

Ariz

cymruchris said:

Your challenge is that it might 'look like' something has happened to it - or that it's 'likely that they did it' (and you're probably not far wrong) - but you have no evidence that that's what actually happened. One for your home insurance possibly.

cymruchris said:

Your challenge is that it might 'look like' something has happened to it - or that it's 'likely that they did it' (and you're probably not far wrong) - but you have no evidence that that's what actually happened. One for your home insurance possibly.

Feel free to send me a DM reference credit building credit cards from the usual suspects - not sure what you mean by this

eskbanker

Ariz said:

Home insurance will not cover as someone else did I have photos of before he started work (fire) and after, no common decency, probably has no liability insurance, which self employed people should have, plus insurance already forked out for cost of rebuild of house                                                       

You might want to try punctuating that into more individual sentences, as I can't work out what the first bit actually means, i.e. why home insurance won't cover it.

There doesn't seem to be any point in speculating about whether or not the trader has liability insurance though, when establishing any liability is the key issue at this stage....

MorningcoffeeIV

Ariz said:

cymruchris said:

Your challenge is that it might 'look like' something has happened to it - or that it's 'likely that they did it' (and you're probably not far wrong) - but you have no evidence that that's what actually happened. One for your home insurance possibly.

cymruchris said:

Your challenge is that it might 'look like' something has happened to it - or that it's 'likely that they did it' (and you're probably not far wrong) - but you have no evidence that that's what actually happened. One for your home insurance possibly.

Feel free to send me a DM reference credit building credit cards from the usual suspects - not sure what you mean by this

What's the relevance of the credit building card? 

eskbanker

MorningcoffeeIV said:

Ariz said:

cymruchris said:

Your challenge is that it might 'look like' something has happened to it - or that it's 'likely that they did it' (and you're probably not far wrong) - but you have no evidence that that's what actually happened. One for your home insurance possibly.

cymruchris said:

Your challenge is that it might 'look like' something has happened to it - or that it's 'likely that they did it' (and you're probably not far wrong) - but you have no evidence that that's what actually happened. One for your home insurance possibly.

Feel free to send me a DM reference credit building credit cards from the usual suspects - not sure what you mean by this

What's the relevance of the credit building card? 

OP is quoting from @cymruchris's signature for some reason....

Penguin_

Ariz said:

Home insurance will not cover as someone else did I have photos of before he started work (fire) and after, no common decency, probably has no liability insurance, which self employed people should have, plus insurance already forked out for cost of rebuild of house                                                       

How do you know this? Have you spoken to your household insurance?

Aylesbury_Duck

Ariz said:

Home insurance will not cover as someone else did I have photos of before he started work (fire) and after, no common decency, probably has no liability insurance, which self employed people should have, plus insurance already forked out for cost of rebuild of house                                                       

Someone else has covered it, or someone else damaged it?  If the former, who has covered it?  If the latter, it doesn't matter.

As for the the middle part, if you think self-employed people should have liability insurance, why didn't you check before employing him?

As for the last part, it doesn't matter.  Assuming you still have insurance in place, you're still entitled to try and claim even though the insurer has paid out for a house rebuild.