Landscaper not completing job - how to resolve?

CTM80

I already made a thread concerning our landscaper in another part of the forum, but I now have a separate query which I thought might be better placed here rather than adding to my thread.

We hired a chap, Jamie, to make a new patio and pathway for us. The patio got completed after many months, but the pathway is still incomplete, and now Jamie isn't even responding to any of our communications. The contract is with my parents, but they aren't tech savvy, and as I live with them too it has been my responsibility to handle emails.

I sent an email warning that if Jamie didn't reply in 10 days we would escalate matters. As you'll have guessed, he didn't reply. He supposedly has some slabs that are owed to us at his property. As noted in the other thread, the police informed my father that if we told Jamie in advance of our intentions, it would be permissible to go to his property and collect them if they are on his front lawn. As a family we decided not to do this until the end of the month when my brother comes down for a visit. I thought that informing Jamie of our intention to come the last weekend of May would be part of the formal letter we would be sending him, as well as a detailed list of outstanding materials required to complete the job. These have been part of draft letters my father had written previously.

While waiting for the 10 days to elapse however, my Dad made enquiries with the CAB. They gave him a number to call - I'm afraid I'm not sure exactly who they were - and the person he spoke to told him he should write a letter containing no more and no less than the following:

Ref: Consumer Rights Act 2015

As this work has not been done in accordance with this contract.

This work should be done as a repeat performance and should be done at no additional cost and be done in a reasonable time, and must not cause any further inconvenience.

I am giving 7 days for your response before I take matters further

I request a copy of your complaints policy

This is in accordance with the ADR Scheme

This was sent today, recorded delivery, but I'm not convinced this was the best approach. Mainly because of the mention of the "repeat performance". Surely this sort of terminology should only be used for work that is of a substandard quality and needs being done a second time? The work Jamie has done so far is fine, we simply need it to be finished. If he took this letter to the word he'd be coming round and digging it all up again, which isn't what we want! Also how can he complete the work - even if he came tomorrow - without causing some degree of 'further inconvenience'. Not that he would come tomorrow as he has clearly demonstrated that he doesn't understand the concept of "reasonable time".

As far as Dad is concerned he spoke to an expert and so that was all that was sent - no mention of materials required to complete the job, no mention of rubbish left at the back end of the lawn such as the old drain cover, nothing about requiring access to the slabs by no later than the end of the month. For a formal letter it just feels to me a bit sparse, undetailed and inaccurate.

What has particularly annoyed me, having been ignored for a month, after his last email complained that he was too stressed (wife's cancer diagnosis among other things) to reply right away, is the discovery that he has found time this week to update his personal facebook page. Dad suggested I post a sarcastic comment asking when he is going to get our job finished. I wouldn't do that, but perhaps I should email the content of the letter I drafted last night?

Any thoughts welcome.

eskbanker

CTM80 said:

While waiting for the 10 days to elapse however, my Dad made enquiries with the CAB. They gave him a number to call - I'm afraid I'm not sure exactly who they were - and the person he spoke to told him he should write a letter containing no more and no less than the following:

Ref: Consumer Rights Act 2015

As this work has not been done in accordance with this contract.

This work should be done as a repeat performance and should be done at no additional cost and be done in a reasonable time, and must not cause any further inconvenience.

I am giving 7 days for your response before I take matters further

I request a copy of your complaints policy

This is in accordance with the ADR Scheme

This was sent today, recorded delivery, but I'm not convinced this was the best approach.

I agree, that letter is poor.  What's done is done but there are far better templates for a letter before action, without the irrelevant and meaningless stuff, but if this is already a letter giving him another deadline after the expiry of a previous one, it'll be diminishing returns in terms of credibility anyway.

Is he a sole trader or a limited company?

When was he last in contact?

Are you actually prepared to go legal or just hoping that he'll blink first?

CTM80

Hi, thanks for the reply!

You raise a good point that I confess I hadn't thought about. He IS registered as a Limited company. We are his final customers as he now has a job at a major construction project, so it isn't that surprising that I've observed that his website has shut down in the last couple of days - or rather it now says "Opening soon. Be the first to know when we launch." with a box to enter your email address, and a separate link at the top saying "enter using password". I wouldn't swear that I looked but I don't think it was like this 28 hours ago, and certainly only changed in the past fortnight.

At Companies House, the last item under Filing history says a Compulsory strike-off action was suspended in Feb 2003 "as an objection to the striking has been received by the Registrar". On the main overview page it gives his status as "Active - Active proposal to strike off". Is this referring to the suspended strike off or a new one? It also notes that the accounts are overdue (due by 31 October 2022) and Confirmation Statement overdue (due by 16 January 2023). If that info is up to date, shouldn't he have been forcibly shut down well before now?

I have looked this up before, but not for a while (the contract was signed in June 2023 - why it's taken this long to get the job finished is a long story!).

He was last in contact on April 1st, sounding pretty offended by the email I'd sent asking "April Fools?" as its subject. 'I have told you that I will get in touch, not only have I been working ridiculous hours but my wife is undergoing treatment and had her breast removed just yesterday, so forgive me for not thinking of the slabs with the little time I have had. As mentioned I will be in touch but pls know I have a lot going on right now and will look to get it done asap' was his response to my queries. All subsequent emails, asking if he could try and find 5 spare minutes to reply etc, have been ignored.

We are prepared to go legal if necessary, but we obviously hope to avoid this if at all possible.

Ectophile

At Companies House, the last item under Filing history says a Compulsory strike-off action was suspended in Feb 2003 "as an objection to the striking has been received by the Registrar". On the main overview page it gives his status as "Active - Active proposal to strike off". Is this referring to the suspended strike off or a new one? It also notes that the accounts are overdue (due by 31 October 2022) and Confirmation Statement overdue (due by 16 January 2023). If that info is up to date, shouldn't he have been forcibly shut down well before now?

It sounds like he wants to shut down the company and walk away.  But somebody else has objected - probably someone the company owes money to.

If the company is in this state, it probably has no money left to go after.

TELLIT01

I going to his property and simply collecting the remaining paving etc a practical proposition?  If so, that's what I would do.  Prepare a letter saying you have collected your property, detailing what you are trying to collect, and put it through his letterbox.

CTM80

Ectophile said:

At Companies House, the last item under Filing history says a Compulsory strike-off action was suspended in Feb 2003 "as an objection to the striking has been received by the Registrar". On the main overview page it gives his status as "Active - Active proposal to strike off". Is this referring to the suspended strike off or a new one? It also notes that the accounts are overdue (due by 31 October 2022) and Confirmation Statement overdue (due by 16 January 2023). If that info is up to date, shouldn't he have been forcibly shut down well before now?

It sounds like he wants to shut down the company and walk away.  But somebody else has objected - probably someone the company owes money to.

If the company is in this state, it probably has no money left to go after.

Surely that would be classed as a Voluntary strike-off, rather than a Compulsory one?

In hindsight his Companies House records don't look at all encouraging and if we'd looked we wouldn't have gone with him. We found him through Checkatrade which we understood to be a trusted source of good traders.

TELLIT01 said:

I going to his property and simply collecting the remaining paving etc a practical proposition?  If so, that's what I would do.  Prepare a letter saying you have collected your property, detailing what you are trying to collect, and put it through his letterbox.

That would depend on where the slabs are - or indeed if he even has them. At this present time Dad seems to have gone off the idea of even going to his home (preferring to post the letter through the mail) never mind collecting the slabs. The police advised that we should inform him in advance of our intent to collect them, and to take a copy with us - ringing the doorbell before we proceed to take them. Hopefully Dad'll let us prepare that advanced notice when these 7 days are expired. 

mcplumb

How many slabs are we talking about and what is the current condition of the path ? Has the prep work been carried out, so its just a case of laying the slabs or does it require excavating with a base layer ?

Your guy isn't coming back, so why not get some supply and fit quotes to finish the remaining work? Once you have an indication of costs then weigh up your options.

I very much doubt the slabs exist and even if they do the logistics of collecting them might outweigh the costs of replacing them. I think that if they did exist, your man would just dump them on your drive to make the problem go away. 

CTM80

Thanks for your message.

There should be 10 slabs. The excavation work has been done but it still needs a professional as there is a gradient involved. The shed and greenhouse are higher up so there is already a slope that has been paved going up in the direction of the greenhouse. The way it's been done though I'm not even sure how you'd have the slabs going towards the shed without them being at an angle!

Getting someone else won't be cheap. 10 slabs doesn't sound much but he is also expected to repair the lawn which had two large piles of sand sitting on it unused for 6+ months, and as well as small items of rubbish like the old drain cover there is also the matter of a cement mixer that has taken up residence at our house. So a new contractor, unless particularly sympathetic, would probably charge extra for clearing all that away. It all builds up! Not to mention that the cement mixer is Jamie's property so that is an added complication. Well we think he said it was on hire so not technically his, but certainly not ours to do what we want with!

The annoying thing is that he'd basically left the job in control of a labourer who seemed more than happy to complete the work, but we only know his first name and don't have contact details. He said he'd be back to finish the job once the slabs etc were here.

Jamie himself no longer has a pick up truck as his last one broke down so he couldn't really just dump them on our drive without assistance from a third party anyway - well not without a couple of trips anyway. Of course, going by his last email, he's too busy to do that!...

It's easy to assume that "he isn't coming back" but we reached the point where we had almost given up hope previously and yet things did get going again - thank god as the patio was still half done at that point!

Checkatrade have previously said they can also help - but only if and when Jamie confirms in writing that he does not intend to complete the work. Ideally we'd want him to admit this before we hired someone else to finish it anyway, I'd have thought.

New quotes is certainly something we must consider though.

How long does it normally take to take issues through the small claims court?

mksysb

CTM80 said:

I already made a thread concerning our landscaper in another part of the forum, but I now have a separate query which I thought might be better placed here rather than adding to my thread.

We hired a chap, Jamie, to make a new patio and pathway for us. The patio got completed after many months, but the pathway is still incomplete, and now Jamie isn't even responding to any of our communications. The contract is with my parents, but they aren't tech savvy, and as I live with them too it has been my responsibility to handle emails.

I sent an email warning that if Jamie didn't reply in 10 days we would escalate matters. As you'll have guessed, he didn't reply. He supposedly has some slabs that are owed to us at his property. As noted in the other thread, the police informed my father that if we told Jamie in advance of our intentions, it would be permissible to go to his property and collect them if they are on his front lawn. As a family we decided not to do this until the end of the month when my brother comes down for a visit. I thought that informing Jamie of our intention to come the last weekend of May would be part of the formal letter we would be sending him, as well as a detailed list of outstanding materials required to complete the job. These have been part of draft letters my father had written previously.

While waiting for the 10 days to elapse however, my Dad made enquiries with the CAB. They gave him a number to call - I'm afraid I'm not sure exactly who they were - and the person he spoke to told him he should write a letter containing no more and no less than the following:

Ref: Consumer Rights Act 2015

As this work has not been done in accordance with this contract.

This work should be done as a repeat performance and should be done at no additional cost and be done in a reasonable time, and must not cause any further inconvenience.

I am giving 7 days for your response before I take matters further

I request a copy of your complaints policy

This is in accordance with the ADR Scheme

This was sent today, recorded delivery, but I'm not convinced this was the best approach. Mainly because of the mention of the "repeat performance". Surely this sort of terminology should only be used for work that is of a substandard quality and needs being done a second time? The work Jamie has done so far is fine, we simply need it to be finished. If he took this letter to the word he'd be coming round and digging it all up again, which isn't what we want! Also how can he complete the work - even if he came tomorrow - without causing some degree of 'further inconvenience'. Not that he would come tomorrow as he has clearly demonstrated that he doesn't understand the concept of "reasonable time".

As far as Dad is concerned he spoke to an expert and so that was all that was sent - no mention of materials required to complete the job, no mention of rubbish left at the back end of the lawn such as the old drain cover, nothing about requiring access to the slabs by no later than the end of the month. For a formal letter it just feels to me a bit sparse, undetailed and inaccurate.

What has particularly annoyed me, having been ignored for a month, after his last email complained that he was too stressed (wife's cancer diagnosis among other things) to reply right away, is the discovery that he has found time this week to update his personal facebook page. Dad suggested I post a sarcastic comment asking when he is going to get our job finished. I wouldn't do that, but perhaps I should email the content of the letter I drafted last night?

Any thoughts welcome.

Recorded delivery is the wrong approach, he can just refuse to sign for it.  The correct way is going to the post office and send it first class with a free certificate of posting.  A document sent first class with proof of posting is deemed served 2 days later.

born_again

CTM80 said:

Thanks for your message.

There should be 10 slabs. The excavation work has been done but it still needs a professional as there is a gradient involved. The shed and greenhouse are higher up so there is already a slope that has been paved going up in the direction of the greenhouse. The way it's been done though I'm not even sure how you'd have the slabs going towards the shed without them being at an angle!

Getting someone else won't be cheap. 10 slabs doesn't sound much but he is also expected to repair the lawn which had two large piles of sand sitting on it unused for 6+ months, and as well as small items of rubbish like the old drain cover there is also the matter of a cement mixer that has taken up residence at our house. So a new contractor, unless particularly sympathetic, would probably charge extra for clearing all that away. It all builds up! Not to mention that the cement mixer is Jamie's property so that is an added complication. Well we think he said it was on hire so not technically his, but certainly not ours to do what we want with!

The annoying thing is that he'd basically left the job in control of a labourer who seemed more than happy to complete the work, but we only know his first name and don't have contact details. He said he'd be back to finish the job once the slabs etc were here.

Jamie himself no longer has a pick up truck as his last one broke down so he couldn't really just dump them on our drive without assistance from a third party anyway - well not without a couple of trips anyway. Of course, going by his last email, he's too busy to do that!...

It's easy to assume that "he isn't coming back" but we reached the point where we had almost given up hope previously and yet things did get going again - thank god as the patio was still half done at that point!

Checkatrade have previously said they can also help - but only if and when Jamie confirms in writing that he does not intend to complete the work. Ideally we'd want him to admit this before we hired someone else to finish it anyway, I'd have thought.

New quotes is certainly something we must consider though.

How long does it normally take to take issues through the small claims court?

Remind hm that he can come & pick it up in exchange for your 10 paving slabs.
If not then you will sell it in lieu of debt after say 1 month.

If it is a hire one they will usually have who they are hired from on it.