Help! Unreliable plasterer

fluffymonkey25

Evening, we really need some help.
We employed a plasterer over a year ago to do some rendering at our house. £1500 was paid for materials. He then broke his wrist and was unable to do the job. He explained the situation and as the weather was on the turn we agreed to wait until the next year, this year.
Come this year he gets in contact and a new date is agreed (we also asked for a quote to plaster some inside rooms, price agreed with him), this date was then pushed back due to another bigger job. Again we were patient. 3 weeks ago he agreed to start the job. He didn't turn up for any day on the first week, we had some contact in the evening explaining the van had broken down which stopped one or 2 days of work. Doesn't explain the other 3 days. the 2nd week he turned up on the Thursday and the 2 of them have made a good start. Since then he has said he will turn up every morning. fri, sat, sun, mon and today. He has not turned up on any day! no reason given in the morning either. Always us contacting him to say what happened and no real excuse just, I will be there tomorrow. The other confusing thing is that they left tools here on the Thursday....... who would do that with no intention of returning?
Any advice on how we proceed? We are sick to the back teeth of this but don't want to lose our money.
Thanks

gwynlas

Sorry but you are stuck with the situation so just go with the flow and stop chasing him unless you are prepared to stop him returning and get somebody else in to finishe. He obviously works where it suits him and might be being paid a premium to complete work somewhere else. I hope you have not paid for the work in advance.

tacpot12

I agree that it is odd that they would leave tools at your home if they were not intending to complete the job. Most tradespeople have just set of tools so need them where ever they are work. The exception might items such as staging/scaffolding where they might have quite alot of it and it is bulky, so storing at the next customer's house is a good option.

Once you realise that they are not going to complete the work, you need to consider if you want to sue them to recover your money. If you have home insurnace, check to see if you have legal expenses cover as this might help with the cost of suing them. 

stuart45

I've got a number of trowels, levels, joining irons etc, and plasterers are often the same, so it's possible to leave tools on site and do another job.