Rights With Work Completed

nycolee28

Hi All,
We have had a leak in our roof for a couple of years now, and only just this year gotten around to getting it fixed. We had a bucket up in our eaves (on second floor) to catch a leak we had, but we noticed in two rooms (our bathroom and spare bedroom) on our first floor had a leak coming through the ceiling. We are not experts and didn't know if they were related/the same leak.
This year we decided to get this leak fixed, and put our details on trustatrader to get someone to quote us. We had two quotes, both from highly rated companies. One company came round and gave us a quote by looking at the leaks in our rooms, then insisted they go outside and look from the back on the outside (so not looking at the leak in the eaves). They instantly said the issue was with our flat roof on our rear dormer, and said it needed a new roof. They quoted the work and said for us to get it for that price we had to sign up that day and have the work done the following day as he had tradesmen spare.
We had another company call up and quoted us over the phone without looking, and it was cheaper than first quote very slightly. 
We called up the first company and negotiated the price halfway between their first quote and the other phone quote. Happy, and they were returning the next day to carry out the work.

Work carried out the next day, professional tradesmen and no issue there. Finished the work the same day, and paid via cash with an invoice signed for £1300.

Since, we have checked back in the eaves and we still have the leak. No further leak in either of the first floor rooms, but they only tend to leak when we have torrential rain, which we haven't had since the roof was fixed.

Tradesmen called back and they came the next working day. Took a look in the eaves and back outside, at which point one of the tradesmen went back up on the roof and came back down with a broken tile and said "this was your problem" and replaced it. 

My questions is: what are our rights in terms of getting any money back for the roof repair? The tile replacement took all of 5 minutes and would have cost us MUCH less, if they had done that in the first place. I'm annoyed we have paid £1300 for a roof repair which (may) not have fixed the issue. 
It's hard to prove that it hasn't, as there hasn't been enough rain to drop through to the first floor, but then we don't know it isn't related to the drip in the eaves.

Any advice much appreciated.

GDB2222

I will watch this with interest. It seems that they did the work they agreed with yourself at a reasonably fair price. The problem is that it was the wrong work. 

There’s a consumer board on the forum, and this may be better off being moved there. 

nycolee28

GDB2222 said:

I will watch this with interest. It seems that they did the work they agreed with yourself at a reasonably fair price. The problem is that it was the wrong work. 

There’s a consumer board on the forum, and this may be better off being moved there. 

thanks - how do I move it? Complete newbie here ;-D

GDB2222

nycolee28 said:

GDB2222 said:

I will watch this with interest. It seems that they did the work they agreed with yourself at a reasonably fair price. The problem is that it was the wrong work. 

There’s a consumer board on the forum, and this may be better off being moved there. 

thanks - how do I move it? Complete newbie here ;-D

A moderator can move it, but it may be easier just to repost it over there. 

rob7475

You'll be lucky to get anything back to be brutally honest. The fact that they pressured you into agreeing to their quote there and then on the promise that they could come back to do the work the next day should have set alarm bells ringing. Any decent builder is booked up for weeks / months.

You'll probably just be wasting your time and money trying to get anything back. All they'll do is shut down the business and open again with a new name.