Taking a Builder to Small Claim Court

bokvis

Yes have his full home address

fatbelly

Don' feel you should cap your claim at 10k. If owed more, you should claim it. It just gets allocated to a diferent track

If you have any addresses for him you can check ownership at the Land Registry. Costs £3

You need one address to start a claim.


I think your strategy should be ccj followed by statutory demand. Anything else is just you wasting time and money.

And that's why I think you should claim the whole of what you are owed. His choice will then be to either pay you or risk the Official Receiver going through his business with a fine-toothed comb.

DullGreyGuy

bokvis said:

My questions / comments
- I need to take the builder to court within a 5 year timeframe i have been told - although he is a sole trader,can i also incude his wife as we paid her by BACS for materials into her personal account?
- I intend to claim for any new materials purchased up to the date they walked out and also the monies paid to them for their labour (except for the blockwork) up to the date they walked out. Apparently i cannot claim for any of my time / labour for the remedial works?
- I paid circ. £1500.00 for the quantity surveyor + his report - would i be able to claim for all of this or only in part ?
- They stole 2 very large Velux windows when they left, unfortunately i cannot prove this, no cctv  

You need to take the entity you were in contract with to court, who you paid is irrelevant. So, is the wife personally named on the contract? If not then no you cannot include her in the action. 

You can only claim for your financial losses that occurred as the direct consequence of their breach of contract. By the sounds of it you've worked in your free time to do this and so won't have suffered a financial loss. At the end of the day you could put in a head of claim for a token amount towards your time but don't expect to get anything close to what a trademan would have charged. 

What is the total cost of your claim? The small track limit is £10,000 for non-injury cases but ultimately it's a judges decision if it goes into Small or Fast track. Again you can submit the report as evidence and include its cost in your claim but judges are more accepting of high cost reports in Fast track than Small.

In Civil law the test is "on the balance of probability", ie you have to show its more likely than not that they took them rather than "beyond reasonable doubt" as is required in criminal law.

born_again

You mention 5 years. Are you in Scotland?

Given you sent a letter 3 years ago, why did you not back it up with taking it to court then?

bokvis

Hello

Firstly thank you all very much for the input - very helpful. 
I decided (rightly or wrongly) to finish the build before persuing further, also was using all funds towards the materials etc - now finished i can hopefully seek some type of positive outcome.

I have all the slips for the materials paid and signed receipts for the labour costs etc. I appreciate i will not be able to claim for my time and labour but hoping to claim for all the replacement materials plus the labour paid to them (minus blockwork) plus the cost of the quantity surveyor

Not ideal, as these chaps seem to thrive walking away from incomplete projects it seems.

Thank you all again (and not in Scotland)