Builder problems - failed buildings control inspection

mavenmim

TLDR: We spent £69k for the first stages of a £400-500k extension and renovation project on a builder I will call Paul. However the buildings inspector says that most of his work does not meet the required standards and will need to be taken down and redone. I’m worried that he has also breached the rules on my home insurance by gutting the part of the house that was due to be renovated once the building work was completed - something that was done without my consent, outside of the expected sequence of work. I’ve now got a good builder I’m calling James who is starting to set things right, but I don’t know how to recover the costs for the work that was done by Paul that wasn’t up to scratch. Help!

Full story: We’ve been having building work done for nearly six years, as we bought a dilapidated smallholding and started building work just prior to the pandemic. We bought the property with planning permission for an ambitious extension and renovation. We've converted an outbuilding that will eventually be a dependent relative annexe, but for now is where we are living whilst the main house is extended and renovated. It is smaller than we are used to, but much better than a static caravan!
The main house is an old stone cottage from about 1900. When we bought it there was a two up, two down front part in fairly good condition, with a rear central section to make a T-shape footprint, and then the two corners had been boxed in to make a pretty much square footprint. The boxing in work had been done very badly. I'd call it a farmer build - no structural joins to the original walls, for example, and leaky flat roofs. They'd also moved some windows and doors in the back section, without bothering with lintels. One of the chimneys leaked badly and there were visible signs of damp. So it was obviously dodgy even to my untrained eye. So from day one the plan was for the whole rear section to be demolished and rebuilt larger, and for the front section to be renovated and brought up to modern standards.
We had quotes in 2019 and chose a builder, who worked with us for four years and did some good - if slow - work (including converting the barn to create the annexe we are living in) before disappearing with some of our cash in summer 2023. The only work he did on the main house was to build some retaining walls and pour the first part of the foundations in 2021 so the building inspector signed off that the work was started (to lock in our planning permission).
We got quotes from new builders in late 2023, but prices were sky high and we didn't find any that were experienced enough to take on a large project like this that didn't have a 12 month lead time. So we had to pause work. Last September we got a new round of quotes that were much more competitive, and found four credible local builders with good reputations and short lead times who wanted the work and put in a quote. We narrowed it down to two firms that we liked. Both had good portfolios and references, and their prices were very similar. We chose Paul as he had done more large builds, and we visited two projects - one he had just finished, and one he was finishing. The customers gave strong positive testimonials and the work looked good so we appointed him to do the work.
Then I renewed my home insurance, and got a very expensive policy that would cover the whole site (it cost more per month than I've previously paid per year for off-the-shelf cover and was based on internal and external photographs of each building and a valuation of the property). I thought it was worth the extra cost as off-the-shelf policies did not appear to cover the annexe or other outbuildings, and because the policy included cover during building works worth up to £250k. The quote for the whole job was higher than this (nearly £400k), so Paul suggested we do the work as separate discrete projects - first he would demolish the back of the old house and build the extension, make it watertight and habitable. Then we would declare that work had been done to the insurer and show photographs of completion, before we would start the renovation work as a separate project. When that was done and declared, finally we would add the "optional extras" of rebuilding the porch, and adding the conservatory, before doing the hard landscaping. That way each project fell well below the what was covered by my insurance policy. It also meant that I didn't need to apply for additional borrowing until more of the work was completed, pushing up the value of the property. So I agreed to the plan. Foolishly, I didn't get him to write me separate quotes or give a formal timeline, and although he sent me a blank template contract when I asked about this, we didn't sign a contract before he started work.
He began work 4 weeks later than promised, just before Christmas. From this point things spiralled pretty quickly.
I should note that the quotes from all the builders we approached were based on all the architectural drawings, engineering requirements and planning conditions. We specified that we wanted to re-use the local stone from the demolished section in the extension, and to reuse the lovely hand-cut lintels and other large feature stones, and to cut up some of the boulders we had excavated when digging the foundations to make any extra stone required (we live in a quarry area and this is what we had done on the other buildings). I spent 2-3 hours with each of them on site discussing the task, and showing them the materials and ensuring they fully understood the specification against which they were quoting. I wanted a builder who would be on site in person (rather than off managing loads of parallel jobs), with an established team, and act as a project manager, sequencing the tasks and choosing/supervising/paying the subcontractors so I had one point of contact for the whole project. This was what Paul promised.
It was not what he delivered. The guys he sent to site didn't seem to know what to do in what order. After two weeks there was a gap, then other guys showed up instead who had never worked for Paul before and didn't seem to have been told what was agreed. They started to cut up the beautiful old stone lintels and throw them away, claiming they were too heavy to lift down off the scaffold [not only were we planning to reuse them, I found similar carved stone lintels for sale for £400 each, so we could have sold any spares]. Then, about six weeks ago, they tore off the roof of the demolition section in a way that left a big hole into the renovation section and left it open to the elements. They propped the first floor up with bits of wood leaving it looking precarious. On a rainy day they decided to work inside and without any warning ripped up the carpets, moved out the furniture and started hacking off the plaster in the renovation section of the house, until that was a bare shell. That worried me, because of the issue with my insurance. The site got really messy with mixed heaps of stone, waste, and materials. Litter was thrown on the ground and into the foundations.
I raised concerns with Paul and he said that it was all fine and going according to plan. Then he started to change the plan more radically. He built some new blockwork sections that joined into the old walls I expected to be demolished. When I challenged him, he said he was going to leave two of the old stone walls standing, as it wouldn't be cost-effective to demolish them and rebuild. This made no sense to me, as these walls were to be rebuilt as modern cavity walls in the plans, and the stone was to be reused in the new external walls that are visible from the road. I asked how he could comply with the engineering drawings about pouring new foundations and joining the old and new sections with rebar. He said it had all been agreed with the buildings inspector and signed off. The next day he said that they couldn't reuse any of the stone we planned to reclaim anyway, as it wasn't of the right depth for use as cladding, where they needed consistent 100mm blocks. That made sense of why they'd made no effort to look after or stack it! I said we had never expected it to be modern 10cm deep blocks, and that we'd discussed in detail how the big blocks of stone would to need cutting to size. He denied that we’d had that conversation. He was insistent that we could just use Z-stone cladding, showing me examples of Cotswold colour stone that was in much smaller pieces and would not have met our planning requirements.
He also started to get really passive-aggressive with me about being too slow to pay him, even though it never took me more than 3 working days from receipt of invoice, and I had explained that (unless told in advance the date an invoice would be coming and the approximate amount) I'd need 3 days to draw it down from my mortgage and transfer it to my current account, before I could make payment. Once he sent me an invoice at 5.48pm on a Friday and followed this up with a cross email asking about why I hadn't paid at 5am on Monday. When I pointed out this wasn't possible for me, he said other customers pay the same day, and he ought to have prioritised other jobs as "The customers on bigger jobs are sometimes very abrupt and come across rude". I said I hoped he didn't think that was the case with us, and he said I was rude and curt with his team and him, which was absolutely not the case (I'd been super-friendly and even bought them each a box of biscuits for Christmas, when they'd only been on site less than a fortnight). When I asked for an example the only thing he could come up with was that I didn't write "good evening Paul, I hope you are well" at the start of text messages, citing replies like "sounds fine to me" or "can you ask your team to make and use a bin for rubbish, not dump it under the floor or in the ground please, as we manage the site for biodiversity and don’t want non biodegradable waste pollution" as unfriendly and too curt. He then got angry at me that I hadn't already gained agreement from the planners that they could use the Z-stone. This was an idea mentioned to me for the first time less than a week before, at which point I had asked him to send me a photograph and specification of the exact product to discuss with the architect and potentially submit to the planning department for approval - that he had not sent me. I had also warned him that our planners had been very particular and it might take months for them to respond, and it could be refused or require us to submit an amendment. But he felt like I should have resolved this already, saying it was my fault his men now had nothing to do - despite the fact they'd not even finished the demolition or building the beam and block floors yet.
I realised at this point that he was not going to be possible to work with for another six months. So I fired him. He kept texting to argue with me until I blocked him. That was 10th March. When he collected his things he was vaguely apologetic, but it didn't make me change my mind. I had paid him £69k for work by this point.
We then approached the other builder we had shortlisted, James, and he was very keen to take on the work, and started within a fortnight. He's only been on site for two weeks and two days, but he has made so much progress. It has been like chalk and cheese. James introduced his team, and notified us of the times he would be away from site. He immediately sorted all the materials and tidied the site. He graded all the stone and cleaned off all the lintels and large pieces, stacking them on pallets. He cut samples to check how they’d use the reclaimed stone, and brought a specialist mason to site that he will be subcontracting to see them. We've also had electricians and renewable energy specialists come to site to confirm the plans with James. He got grab vans to remove the waste, and levelled the site. He covered the big hole in the roof with tarpaulin. He put proper props into the demolition area until all the upper storey was down. He started to plan the schedule of works, and he spoke to the architectural designer, structural engineer and buildings inspector. I finally feel like the project is in good hands.
However, on Thursday I got a report from the buildings inspector saying that almost all of the work done by Paul's team is not up to standard. The fill under the beam and block floors is wrong, the spacing of the beams is wrong, the blocks are not level enough, and all the above ground block work has been laid with a mix that is too sandy and would just crumble if pushed, with messy snots that breach the barrier and gaps in the damp proof course at every corner. I replied asking the inspector about joining the old and new foundations and the change to the plan to demolish the two walls. He said he had never signed off any plan to retain the walls, and that the foundations did need to be dug and joined the way I expected. We've used the same inspector for 4 years and I trust him to be a pragmatic guy who isn't unreasonable in his expectations, so this came as quite a shock!

I've been told that not only will most of the work Paul's company did need to be taken down and redone, but that he has actually added costs, as James can't get a digger to the location where the foundations need to be dug, so that now needs to be done by hand, and all the fill materials below the beam and block floor will need taking out, and some of the foundation blocks will need cutting down. I've also had to pay for all the mess to be tidied up, and the waste to be removed. That's tens of thousands of pounds worth of work, though I can't easily get an exact figure for it that will appear independent as James had already done a lot of tidying up and finished the demolition before I was made aware of the problems.

I should maybe mention that James was horrified to learn how much I'd paid Paul, compared to what had been done since he had submitted his initial quotation. He said that it seemed he had been overcharging me and his team had been cutting corners in the work, and that there were lots of signs of poor workmanship that he had been planning how to fix. I feel like I should have trusted my gut and fired Paul much earlier.

So what do I do now?

I don't know if Paul will accept responsibility for any of it - so far he hasn't replied to my emails. I don't know how to claim my money back from him, or how to work out how much to claim. I could get legal advice as my insurance offers support with contract disputes and legal cost protection. But I'm worried that he's left me in a position where the insurance I bought could say that my cover is not valid because the way that the renovation part of the house has been gutted means that it will look like I wanted the whole lot done in one go - making it a single project where the total cost of work exceeds the specified ceiling.

I don't know whether to speak to the insurers and tell them what has happened. I might be able to increase the cover for building work, as they said I could call once we start the work if the cost look like they are going beyond the current threshold of cover. Or it might be that I have some protection in this situation. 

I can't get my head around whether Paul intentionally misled me about splitting the projects, or whether his communication was just so bad that the subcontracted labourers went off plan. But either way I'm worried it will look like I agreed a higher quote than their maximum value of work, as I don't have documentary evidence that I said I could only agree to go ahead if they split it into the separate jobs and stayed within the remit of my insurance. I don't want it to risk them voiding the policy.

gzoom

No real advice, but good luck and feel your pain!!

It was me, I would just absorb the cost and crack on with the new builder.

TheGreenFrog

Legal expenses insurance tends to be separate cover from buildings insurance, even though it is on face of it the same policy.  But the insurance rarely covers contractual disputes, and I note you refer only to an advice line.  So you may not have actual legal expenses cover for this dispute and calling teh advice line won't take you any further than telling you that it sounds like you have valid grounds to claim against Paul.  They may be able to recommend some solicitors, but at the end of the day you will be in same position - having to hire lawyers to claim against Paul.  So suggest you check with advice line whether contractual dispute with your builder is covered by the legal expenses policy - if it is not (and you can only access an advice line under the policy rather than legal representation) then you need to decide whether to hire lawyers or not.  Make sure you take photographs of shoddy work and keep all paperwork, emails etc. If you do decide to consult lawyers then best done asap while remedial work underway.

More generally on your buildings insurance, you probably need to discuss current situation with your insurers.  If terms of existing cover have been departed from then you may not be covered and if you leave it then you may only find thet out when something happens and you try to make a claim. 

Albermarle

I think that is probably the longest post ( in number of words) that I have ever seen !

FreeBear

Albermarle said:

I think that is probably the longest post ( in number of words) that I have ever seen !

I think I've seen longer ones, but I did manage to read this one from start to finish.

All I can suggest on the issues with Paul is to get a written report of what work he has done and a list of defects that need to be resolved. It will cost you a bit upfront, but will pay for itself when it goes to court. As this is likely to be a claim well above the small claims track, you'll need to consult (and pay for) a solicitor for some advice on how to proceed.

As for the work that James is doing - One can hire micro-excavators and powered barrows that will fit through a standard doorway. Having that sort of equipment on site will speed up a lot of the grunt work and save on having to do everything by hand. Have a chat with James and see if he can use the smaller machines. A few days of plant hire will be a lot cheaper than a couple of weeks of hand digging.

mavenmim

gzoom said:

No real advice, but good luck and feel your pain!!

It was me, I would just absorb the cost and crack on with the new builder.

It sounds like you are richer than me, or at least more stoic! We've struggled to raise the extra capital to cover the inflated costs from the pandemic/Brexit, and we've already spent double our initial total budget for the site, and lost some cash with the builder who disappeared. The contingency funds are all long spent. So an extra £50k will be very painful and might mean that we can't get the last tranche of money, and have to forgo doing the conservatory/kitchen or take out a personal loan at much higher interest rates.

mavenmim

TheGreenFrog said:

Legal expenses insurance tends to be separate cover from buildings insurance, even though it is on face of it the same policy.  But the insurance rarely covers contractual disputes, and I note you refer only to an advice line.  So you may not have actual legal expenses cover for this dispute and calling teh advice line won't take you any further than telling you that it sounds like you have valid grounds to claim against Paul.  They may be able to recommend some solicitors, but at the end of the day you will be in same position - having to hire lawyers to claim against Paul.  So suggest you check with advice line whether contractual dispute with your builder is covered by the legal expenses policy - if it is not (and you can only access an advice line under the policy rather than legal representation) then you need to decide whether to hire lawyers or not.  Make sure you take photographs of shoddy work and keep all paperwork, emails etc. If you do decide to consult lawyers then best done asap while remedial work underway.

More generally on your buildings insurance, you probably need to discuss current situation with your insurers.  If terms of existing cover have been departed from then you may not be covered and if you leave it then you may only find thet out when something happens and you try to make a claim. 

Luckily my insurance policy summary says "legal protections – we will pay the costs and expenses for insured incidents such as employment disputes, contract disputes, and bodily injury" for the policy holders. I know what you mean as I've got the standard advice line policy with my FSB membership, so I had noticed that this policy had better coverage.

And yes, I probably do need to contact the insurer about the situation. I'd always rather be open and honest, and properly covered! I'm just stressed about it.

mavenmim

Albermarle said:

I think that is probably the longest post ( in number of words) that I have ever seen !

Yes, hence the TLDR at the top. But I figured that the folks on here with building expertise might want to know more of the details to give informed advice.

mavenmim

FreeBear said:

All I can suggest on the issues with Paul is to get a written report of what work he has done and a list of defects that need to be resolved. It will cost you a bit upfront, but will pay for itself when it goes to court. As this is likely to be a claim well above the small claims track, you'll need to consult (and pay for) a solicitor for some advice on how to proceed.

As for the work that James is doing - One can hire micro-excavators and powered barrows that will fit through a standard doorway. Having that sort of equipment on site will speed up a lot of the grunt work and save on having to do everything by hand. Have a chat with James and see if he can use the smaller machines. A few days of plant hire will be a lot cheaper than a couple of weeks of hand digging.

Yes, seems sensible. I've got a list of the works he claimed in his invoices, and I took photos of progress fairly regularly, though not with the frequency of level of detail that I wish I had in retrospect as I had some significant health issues from 1st Jan, that led to surgery on 25th Feb, and I'm still recovering. I haven't been fully mobile, and the site wasn't very safe during that period, which is why I was a bit slow to pick up on the problems.

It does give me a bit of a timeline: My phone shows photos pre-demolition, of the foundation/beam and block floor on 11th and 19th Jan (with no above ground level block work). I've got photos from 25th Jan showing the blocks going up that include two of the bad corners where the damp proof course is not joined properly. On 25th Feb the photos show the demolition of the back section has started, and they are down to the top of the upstairs windows. The roof hole is open and things look chaotic. By then they'd started removing plasterwork the inside of the house. 2nd March the upstairs windows are gone, but the stone they were taking down was being stacked. In the background of one photo you can see the new wall starting to go up, joining the wall that was supposed to be demolished. 8th March the upstairs is just a deck, but the side walls have been left standing. Photos show rubbish and broken glass being dumped into the void below the beam and block floor. There is stone everywhere (dumped, not stacked). 10th March I fired him.

gzoom

mavenmim said:

gzoom said:

No real advice, but good luck and feel your pain!!

It was me, I would just absorb the cost and crack on with the new builder.

It sounds like you are richer than me, or at least more stoic! We've struggled to raise the extra capital to cover the inflated costs from the pandemic/Brexit, and we've already spent double our initial total budget for the site, and lost some cash with the builder who disappeared. The contingency funds are all long spent. So an extra £50k will be very painful and might mean that we can't get the last tranche of money, and have to forgo doing the conservatory/kitchen or take out a personal loan at much higher interest rates.

Not sure about rich, but my day job is managing complex situations where parties disagree. All I can say is there are worse things going on in world, life is short, and if you can move all, that's probably the quickest way to resolve things.

Many people think the law is black and white, ie, right or wrong, the reality is the law is every shade of grey you can imagine. If you are going to hold someone to account based on a contract than both parties have already lost, and it's only the lawyers who will win. 

Good luck with the situation, getting the house done though must be the top priority. 

mavenmim

Thanks. I agree, we have to get on and finish the work from where we are now. However, I'm still determined to try to recover the costs if that is possible.

To update: I've had an independent structural engineer out to site, and he immediately picked up all the same problems as the buildings inspector, and said that the blocks have to come down to lift the beam and block floor (and this would have been the case even if they weren't obviously laid with too sandy a mix, and gaps in the damp proof course at every corner). Once the beams and blocks are out the way, then the buildings control inspector can sign off that the below ground work Paul did is up to standard (it seems to be 60mm out from square, but I don't know if that is an issue). Once that gets the thumbs up, the cavity needs to be filled to the required level below ground, and the beam and blocks laid to a proper design that will use twice as many beams (which explains why so many had been left on the side). Then they can start to build upwards.

Paul denies that anything is wrong. He's tried to argue with the buildings inspector and with me. He declined the option of meeting with us this week on site for various reasons, but eventually said he is away on holiday elswhere in the UK. He has demanded that he be reinstructed to finish the job, and says any issues are trivial and can be fixed. He said he thought the concerns from buildings control were "ludicrous" and that the inspector had been "manipulated" by the new contractor. It is his belief there is nothing wrong that can't be "easily fixed without taking anything down", and he won't "curl up and take this nonsense".

I informed my insurance about what has happened and they were nice about it. They've sent a query to underwriting about whether there will be an increase in the premium or any exclusions given the increased scope of work. Bad workmanship is not covered by the policy, but they referred me to the legal advice service who said that trades must demonstrate due care and skill in his work. Given the buildings control report shows he has not delivered that, I am entitled to restitution. That could mean him making good, but I am not obligated to let him do that if I have lost faith and confidence in the quality of his workmanship, and can instead ask for financial restitution. They've given me some advice about steps and some template letters, but if he doesn't accept fault and come to a settlement, they'll pass it on as a legal claim. They'll then evaluate the merits of the claim, and pick up the cost if it meets their criteria to pursue. They also suggested that I speak to checkatrade and trading standards, and I believe the former can release details of Paul's insurance to us if we raise a complaint.