Plumber refused to leave my property before payment

Renjaybird

Hello, 

I own a one bedroom flat and had to find an emergency plumber the other evening as my tenants called to say the boiler was leaking. My tenants couldn’t turn the stop tap off under the sink and the leak was too severe to leave till the morning. I typed in emergency plumbers 24 hour on Google and found a company locally which had lots of good reviews. When I called they said a plumber could be round within an hour and the call out fee was £70. I asked them to call me once they knew what the problem was and to advise how best to fix it. 

I told my tenants someone was on the way and that I would be awake all night as I have a newborn baby so let me know if any issues. At midnight my tenants text to say the plumber had arrived. 

I didn’t hear anything until the morning when my tenants text to say the plumber had left at 2:30am, supposedly fixed the boiler, and had billed them £426. He had refused to leave the property until being paid so my tenants had paid him. My tentants sent me a copy of his invoice to me which states “invoice payment required within 30 days” so it’s not clear why the plumber wanted payment once the job was complete. 

I don’t know why I wasn’t contacted by the plumber or the company before payment was made, or work was even started so I could hear about what work needed to be done, and I could authorise it, so the next morning I called the company to complain and they were defensive and blamed the plumber. I called the plumber and he said it’s normal practice to expect payment on the day and he explained that he had fixed the leak. 

No new parts were needed, and from what my tenants said it seems like he just cleaned limescale off the leaky pipe and tied some tape around it. Hard to know without any plumbing knowledge! The price seemed incredibly excessive, but neither the plumber or the company were able to send me a breakdown of the costs.

The plumber then called me and said he had left his tool box at the property and could he come and collect it. I said that the tenant would be at the property, and I also asked him if he had time whilst he was there could he look at the shower as the tenants had mentioned a bad smell. I was very clear that he should let me know his thoughts on the problem once he had seen it. He text me when he was there saying there is “disposal stay in shower tray” and it would cost £135 to fix. I asked him how he would fix the problem and if new parts were needed, but 30 mins later I receive a text saying he has cleaned the waste pipe and wants payment. I was with my newborn baby so missed a call from him after this when he was requesting payment, so again my tenants paid him. I didn’t even know what he had done to fix the problem!

The next day my tenants text to say the shower problem hadn’t been fixed and from what it looked like he just cleaned a pipe under the sink. So I called to complain and get a refund from the plumber and said I was unhappy with how he had operated expecting payment before I had approved a job, and that the job hadn’t even been fixed. 

He has got quite angry and defensive on texts and refused to offer any refund. 

The company he apparently works for are also not helpful and say any refund must come from him.

He has a registered gas safety number, and I have his address and bank details but not sure how best to go about getting a refund and complaining about the work done and the way he operates.

Any advice would be much appreciated!

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

To be honest OP any time you use an emergency plumber, especially at midnight, you are going to pay an arm and leg one way or the other. 

I wouldn't have even had the thought of offering the plumber more work after the first experience.

Personally I would show your tenants how to turn off the water as they really should know how to do this and would see about finding a local plumbing co you can trust for any issues going forward.

It is likely this would be a B2B transaction so not afforded the usual consumer rights, others may know if there is legislation covering B2B services but personally if visit 1 fixed problem 1 and it's just visit/issue 2 that hasn't been done correctly I would write it off.  

Baldytyke88

Renjaybird said:

The next day my tenants text to say the shower problem hadn’t been fixed and from what it looked like he just cleaned a pipe under the sink. So I called to complain and get a refund from the plumber and said I was unhappy with how he had operated expecting payment before I had approved a job, and that the job hadn’t even been fixed. 

He has got quite angry and defensive on texts and refused to offer any refund. 

The company he apparently works for are also not helpful and say any refund must come from him.

Was the first problem that the water could not be turned off?

If you tell him or someone else that it's still leaking, he may come and fix it. But since you weren't there, you can expect problems.

GrubbyGirl_2

So you weren't happy at the price, you felt he had done a patch job rather than a proper fix, you then asked for him to do some more work and again you felt he didn't do a proper job. 

Apart from the fact you are bound to be paying a lot more as it was early hours of the morning, I'm confused as to why you asked him to do even more work when you weren't happy with the standard of the work he did in the first place?

LightFlare

£400 for 2 1/2 hours work midnight to 02:30am is very reasonable 

The quality/standard may not so - but he did stop the leak didn’t he ?

pinkshoes

Renjaybird said:

Hello, 

I own a one bedroom flat and had to find an emergency plumber the other evening as my tenants called to say the boiler was leaking. My tenants couldn’t turn the stop tap off under the sink and the leak was too severe to leave till the morning. I typed in emergency plumbers 24 hour on Google and found a company locally which had lots of good reviews. When I called they said a plumber could be round within an hour and the call out fee was £70. I asked them to call me once they knew what the problem was and to advise how best to fix it. 

I told my tenants someone was on the way and that I would be awake all night as I have a newborn baby so let me know if any issues. At midnight my tenants text to say the plumber had arrived. 

I didn’t hear anything until the morning when my tenants text to say the plumber had left at 2:30am, supposedly fixed the boiler, and had billed them £426. He had refused to leave the property until being paid so my tenants had paid him. My tentants sent me a copy of his invoice to me which states “invoice payment required within 30 days” so it’s not clear why the plumber wanted payment once the job was complete. 

I don’t know why I wasn’t contacted by the plumber or the company before payment was made, or work was even started so I could hear about what work needed to be done, and I could authorise it, so the next morning I called the company to complain and they were defensive and blamed the plumber. I called the plumber and he said it’s normal practice to expect payment on the day and he explained that he had fixed the leak. 

No new parts were needed, and from what my tenants said it seems like he just cleaned limescale off the leaky pipe and tied some tape around it. Hard to know without any plumbing knowledge! The price seemed incredibly excessive, but neither the plumber or the company were able to send me a breakdown of the costs.

The plumber then called me and said he had left his tool box at the property and could he come and collect it. I said that the tenant would be at the property, and I also asked him if he had time whilst he was there could he look at the shower as the tenants had mentioned a bad smell. I was very clear that he should let me know his thoughts on the problem once he had seen it. He text me when he was there saying there is “disposal stay in shower tray” and it would cost £135 to fix. I asked him how he would fix the problem and if new parts were needed, but 30 mins later I receive a text saying he has cleaned the waste pipe and wants payment. I was with my newborn baby so missed a call from him after this when he was requesting payment, so again my tenants paid him. I didn’t even know what he had done to fix the problem!

The next day my tenants text to say the shower problem hadn’t been fixed and from what it looked like he just cleaned a pipe under the sink. So I called to complain and get a refund from the plumber and said I was unhappy with how he had operated expecting payment before I had approved a job, and that the job hadn’t even been fixed. 

He has got quite angry and defensive on texts and refused to offer any refund. 

The company he apparently works for are also not helpful and say any refund must come from him.

He has a registered gas safety number, and I have his address and bank details but not sure how best to go about getting a refund and complaining about the work done and the way he operates.

Any advice would be much appreciated!

The £426 you will need to write off as a business expense. It was an emergency call out late at night so not a surprising amount!

The additional £135 you should absolutely contest. You made it very clear not to carry out any work and just wanted a quote, and he hasn't even fixed the problem! As they're refusing to fund, you have to decide whether it's worth the effort of sending a letter before action threatening small claims court if they don't refund, or just leaving a few factual reviews online that will hopefully cost them more in the long term than the £135 you paid. 

Personally, I think you were a little foolish to even suggest this person quotes for something else, so I'd just leave a factual review online on something like Trustpilot and Facebook, then try and find a reliable and honest plumber in the area as a contact who could potentially sort out any future emergencies. 

TELLIT01

The tenants shouldn't have paid as it's not their debt.  They should have called the police and said they were being threatened.

HillStreetBlues

TELLIT01 said:

The tenants shouldn't have paid as it's not their debt.  They should have called the police and said they were being threatened.

That's what I would have done, Aggravated Trespass.

Renjaybird

Thank you for all your replies everyone. I’ve left a few more notes below.. 

I asked the plumber to take a look at the problem with the shower as at that point the boiler problem seemed to have been solved and the only issue I had was with the cost. Hence why I said can you take a look at the shower (as you are going to be in the property) and let me know where you think the bad smell is coming from and how best to fix it. I appreciate this wasn’t a sensible idea in hindsight but I just wanted the problem to be fixed as soon as possible for the tenants and given that he was a plumber I thought I would get his opinion. As I stated before I absolutely did not ask him to start any work on it. 

I will definitely be leaving bad reviews in the hope that a refund of £135 for the unfixed shower comes back to me. 

I wish the tenants had called me or the police when being forced to pay before he left but unfortunately they didn’t. 

Thanks again for your help

Grumpy_chap

Renjaybird said:

I will definitely be leaving bad reviews in the hope that a refund of £135 for the unfixed shower comes back to me. 

The £135 will not come back to you - a bad review won't make it more likely to come back you.

It is very confusing why, given you were not happy with the service from the first call-out visit, you felt this plumber would do a good service on some other work when returning to collect the toolbox.

What have you saved by not engaging a Management Agent?  These out of hours calls and resulting response costs are the off-set of that saving.
Have you considered a home emergency type cover to respond to out of hours calls in the future?  That may mean you get a "vetted" service rather than just whoever responded from your search under duress.