Being charged for work we never agreed to

Hi, we just bought a house and the guy we bought the house from has retained a plot of land next to our house. He is having a boundary fence erected to separate his land and they are digging holes and fitting concrete poles.

Our drains at the same time of them digging completely blocked up. We had a drainage company around the clear the blockage and they said the pipe is damaged and there is a hole in the pipe. They said it looks as though the pipe has been damaged by the fence people.

We approach the fence people to say we've been told it looks as though they have damaged our pipes in digging the fence holes. The guy agrees to dig around where the fence post is to see if they have damaged it. They dig the hole and discover it isn't damaged where they have put the pole, but he says he will keep digging until he finds the hole. At no point did he say he would charge us or did he ask us to do the work he just said they will dig until they find the hole.

We had a lad around today digging on behalf of the fence guy for quite some time. Spending most of the day on his phone to be honest but he found the hole in the pipe. Tonight we got a text from the fence man saying that so far it's cost us £190 to dig out the pipe out and he is happy to fix it tomorrow for another 2-4 hours work.....now at no point did we ask him to dig it up. We would have happily done it ourselves today no problem. Especially if we knew it would be 190!!!

Anyone know where we stand with this?? Already asked someone else to come and fix the pipe as I do not want that man fixing anything of ours.

Thank you
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  • J_B
    J_B Posts: 6,408
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    ErolGirl wrote: »
    They dig the hole and discover it isn't damaged where they have put the pole, but he says he will keep digging until he finds the hole. At no point did he say he would charge us or did he ask us to do the work he just said they will dig until they find the hole.

    Maybe you ought to have declined his offer to "keep digging"??

    Or did you?
  • ErolGirl
    ErolGirl Posts: 59
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    J_B wrote: »
    Maybe you ought to have declined his offer to "keep digging"??

    Or did you?

    It was my boyfriend who spoke with him in the end as the man was so rude to me I refused to speak with him again. My boyfriend said he was never under the impression we would be paying for anything. The man who owns the land next door called round to speak to the fence man and he came into the house to tell us they would be digging until they found it too. So I was under the impression he had instructed them to do so.
  • Alter_ego
    Alter_ego Posts: 3,842
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    If the drain is communal the repair is down to the water authority. Does the pipe in question serve another property?
    I am not a cat (But my friend is)
  • Alter_ego wrote: »
    If the drain is communal the repair is down to the water authority. Does the pipe in question serve another property?

    No unfortunately not, it only serves our house as we are at the end of a lane. The pipe in question in over the boundary in the plot of land the other guy owns but serves our house. The public sewer that the water board owns doesn't start until it get a to our gate posts.
  • Deastons
    Deastons Posts: 464 Forumite
    edited 5 February 2018 at 12:31AM
    Surely the workman should have quoted for the work. Or at least given an idea of the time it might take him and his daily rate.

    If none of this was discussed (which from what you've said, it wasn't) then I don't see that you need to pay a thing. For a contract to be formed, each party needs to agree to something - he agreed to do the work but you didn't agree to pay him, so no contract is in place.

    Explain to him that you didn't discuss payment/rates/quotes and that you won't be paying. He'll have to pursue you through the courts which he's unlikely to do for £190. And if he does, he's got no contract to back-up his claims.

    The fact you've exchanged numbers is a little suspicious, though. It would suggest you were in deeper contact with him than just a friendly chat over the garden fence and may have given him the impression you were expecting him to carry out the work.
  • hollydays
    hollydays Posts: 19,812
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    edited 5 February 2018 at 7:59AM
    There are drains companies that will put a camera down the drains to see what is going on.
    I would d say you need to get this sorted out good and proper imho.
    I would ;d also be taking note of the registration numbers of the fencing contractors and checking they arent t a company who will disappear without trace
  • arcon5
    arcon5 Posts: 14,099
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    Not really sure where you stand legally... but your bf must have surely thought at some point this guy is spending a lot of time investigating a fault with my sewerage pipe....? Nothing in this world is free so why would he dedicate days to your issue having eliminated his employees work as the cause....?
  • arcon5 wrote: »
    Not really sure where you stand legally... but your bf must have surely thought at some point this guy is spending a lot of time investigating a fault with my sewerage pipe....? Nothing in this world is free so why would he dedicate days to your issue having eliminated his employees work as the cause....?

    correct. as soon as it was clear that they themselves hadnt damaged it then I would expect any further work to be chargeable. Time and effort = money Im afraid
  • It never even crossed our minds, in hindsight then yes, you would think time & effort = money. But for some reason it never even crossed our minds, we just thought he was keen to prove to us that it wan't their fault that the pipe was broken.

    Also we did no give him our numbers, the neighbour that we bought the house off must have passed on our numbers (which I am also not happy about).

    I have spoken to the Office of Fair Trading and they have said as there is no contract we do not HAVE to pay, or we can offer what we think the work is worth, but he could potentially take us to small claims if we do not pay.
  • unholyangel
    unholyangel Posts: 16,863
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    Leaving aside the argument of whether a contract was actually formed (which requires an offer, acceptance, consideration, intent to be legally bound etc) there is also the consumer contract regulations.

    Which means that regardless how the contract was formed (in person, over the phone/internet etc) that they are required to tell you what the total price will be and if that is not possible, then they must tell you how the price will be calculated (ie £x an hour labour).
    You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means - Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride
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