first real complaint, advice appreciated

[Andy Allen]

Same.....I didn't fit the bath so covered.

 

[craig89]

View attachment 96719 View attachment 96719 View attachment 96720 Hi guys,

View attachment 96719 View attachment 96719 View attachment 96720 Hi guys,
sorry for long post, just after a bit of advice regarding my first proper complaint from a kitchen splashback i done a couple of weeks ago, and am at present both gutted and pretty annoyed.
Customer called me as they had removed all old tiles from wall and made a mess of the wall, therefore needed the kitchen wall sorting.
Popped round and quoted them £250 for 2 days work including adhesives and grout.
Customer had a plasterer in to sort walls out before tiling but plasterer had back bonded them but said they were fine for tiling.
Turned up on first day and walls were pretty messy, cust had also pva'd walls on plasterer advice. I advised that pva shouldnt be used, so i scrubbed walls and stuck Bal primer on them.
Cust also told me that 2 separate worktops were not same height (15mm gap) difference from one worktop to another. advised him that one side would use 3mm spacers over a few tiles to make the gap up from one unit to the next where i used 2mm spacers.
All agreed by both.
Anyway struck up good rapport over 2 days with customer and managed to do what i thought was a decent job.
Received payment, however 3 days later wife contacted me to say they were pretty unhappy with work done. At no time over the 2 days did anyone intimate the work was bad, quite the opposite in fact, so much so that i was asked to re do the bathroom which they werent happy with from the last tiler who had done that.
One complaint was regarding plug sockets as i had tiled under the edge of the sockets which i had left in a "dangerous and avoidable" condition. I admit maybe one was borderline tight but the rest were no different to numerous splashbacks in the past.
Also some of the tiles were not 100% flat in places, I explained that because the wall was so uneven with differences of 20mm from place to place it would be hard to get everything completely flat, along with the fact that 75% of the tiles had a small bow in the middle.
I agreed an amount to refund with the customer to cover this, which even the customer stated if this can be settled this would conclude the matter.
A week later however i have been messaged again stating the whole job was shoddy and they are completely disgusted with it. Now they are stating it is so bad that they are looking to claim from my insurance, have me pay all the money back or take me to the local courts to settle.
My query lies with a few things:
1. apparently the cust has spoke to solicitor and got 3 quotes from diff tilers to fix which were vastly cheaper than my initial quote of £250. how much does a splashback more or less cost nowadays for 2 days work. Apparently my initial quote was at the top end of pricing for a kitchen splashback.
2. during 2 days work the husband was constantly saying how happy he was with the job, but his wife wasnt overly enamoured because the tiles looked like "tiles in a doctors bathroom". Am i being taken for a ride here because they dont like the tiles which they bought??
3. apart from the sockets, they werent happy that i left a 2mm gap under the wall cupboards (which were filled with matching silicone), does anyone else leave a gap under cupboards?
4. has anyone ever dealt with a cust who nothing is ever good enough for, now im not bitter about this and the reason i mention it is because, the customers complained that their bathroom was terrible and was getting re tiled, the plasterer had done a bad job and the customers could have done a better job themselves, the electrician who moved the sockets in the kitchen had done a shoddy job, basically everything that had been done was done badly by various different tradesmen.
5. regarding courts and insurance i believed under the sale of goods act if you werent asked to return to fix anything you could agree to a settlement. if we had agreed as mentioned can you then ask for more money back etc...

sorry for the long winded post but really could do with some help.

added a few pics also before and after

View attachment 96721 View attachment 96722

sorry for long post, just after a bit of advice regarding my first proper complaint from a kitchen splashback i done a couple of weeks ago, and am at present both gutted and pretty annoyed.
Customer called me as they had removed all old tiles from wall and made a mess of the wall, therefore needed the kitchen wall sorting.
Popped round and quoted them £250 for 2 days work including adhesives and grout.
Customer had a plasterer in to sort walls out before tiling but plasterer had back bonded them but said they were fine for tiling.
Turned up on first day and walls were pretty messy, cust had also pva'd walls on plasterer advice. I advised that pva shouldnt be used, so i scrubbed walls and stuck Bal primer on them.
Cust also told me that 2 separate worktops were not same height (15mm gap) difference from one worktop to another. advised him that one side would use 3mm spacers over a few tiles to make the gap up from one unit to the next where i used 2mm spacers.
All agreed by both.
Anyway struck up good rapport over 2 days with customer and managed to do what i thought was a decent job.
Received payment, however 3 days later wife contacted me to say they were pretty unhappy with work done. At no time over the 2 days did anyone intimate the work was bad, quite the opposite in fact, so much so that i was asked to re do the bathroom which they werent happy with from the last tiler who had done that.
One complaint was regarding plug sockets as i had tiled under the edge of the sockets which i had left in a "dangerous and avoidable" condition. I admit maybe one was borderline tight but the rest were no different to numerous splashbacks in the past.
Also some of the tiles were not 100% flat in places, I explained that because the wall was so uneven with differences of 20mm from place to place it would be hard to get everything completely flat, along with the fact that 75% of the tiles had a small bow in the middle.
I agreed an amount to refund with the customer to cover this, which even the customer stated if this can be settled this would conclude the matter.
A week later however i have been messaged again stating the whole job was shoddy and they are completely disgusted with it. Now they are stating it is so bad that they are looking to claim from my insurance, have me pay all the money back or take me to the local courts to settle.
My query lies with a few things:
1. apparently the cust has spoke to solicitor and got 3 quotes from diff tilers to fix which were vastly cheaper than my initial quote of £250. how much does a splashback more or less cost nowadays for 2 days work. Apparently my initial quote was at the top end of pricing for a kitchen splashback.
2. during 2 days work the husband was constantly saying how happy he was with the job, but his wife wasnt overly enamoured because the tiles looked like "tiles in a doctors bathroom". Am i being taken for a ride here because they dont like the tiles which they bought??
3. apart from the sockets, they werent happy that i left a 2mm gap under the wall cupboards (which were filled with matching silicone), does anyone else leave a gap under cupboards?
4. has anyone ever dealt with a cust who nothing is ever good enough for, now im not bitter about this and the reason i mention it is because, the customers complained that their bathroom was terrible and was getting re tiled, the plasterer had done a bad job and the customers could have done a better job themselves, the electrician who moved the sockets in the kitchen had done a shoddy job, basically everything that had been done was done badly by various different tradesmen.
5. regarding courts and insurance i believed under the sale of goods act if you werent asked to return to fix anything you could agree to a settlement. if we had agreed as mentioned can you then ask for more money back etc...

sorry for the long winded post but really could do with some help.

added a few pics also before and after

View attachment 96721 View attachment 96722

I had a client who had "issues" with my work after the job was completed......... Long story short was that we ended up in court after he sued me for just about anything he could think of, so as to avoid paying me the 2.5k he still owed me (this included trying to tell the court that i had used only 20 bags of sticky instead of the 50 odd I had quoted for........because he could only find 20 used bags in the skip???)
I counter sued him....he left court in tears.... I got paid!
Chancers are out there believe me, first time I've been bumped in 30 odd years. I honestly didn't see that one coming!
If you believe that you've done nothing wrong and have offered to try and rectify things, and they're still trying it on, then small claims court might be an option.
Good luck !

 

[Slippery]

They are trying to get you to re-tile IMO
Be polite but agree to no discount or other work apart from rectifying what is wrong. "had to get a sparky to re-fit a socket" they are trying it on!!

PS, double your prices !!

 

[Time's Ran Out]

It’s no good telling the OP to increase his prices, work has to be of an acceptable standard to get paid even £250!
Can’t see where any trim has been used, the background bonded substrate is not a recommended surface for tiling, the gap at the top of the units could have been foreseen and dealt with by a wider tile joint, and if your going to get involved with sockets you have to leave them in a secure and safe position.
It may be that the customer is genuinely unhappy with the quality of the job or their own tile choice. If you give them their money back they may claim more, you could front it out!

 

[Italy]

It’s no good telling the OP to increase his prices, work has to be of an acceptable standard to get paid even £250!
Can’t see where any trim has been used, the background bonded substrate is not a recommended surface for tiling, the gap at the top of the units could have been foreseen and dealt with by a wider tile joint, and if your going to get involved with sockets you have to leave them in a secure and safe position.
It may be that the customer is genuinely unhappy with the quality of the job or their own tile choice. If you give them their money back they may claim more, you could front it out!

are you healed?

 

[dynamictiling]

Sorry to hear you got in a bit of a mess. Personally think the customer is a chancer.

Seems to be a bit of confusion with insurance...


Public liability- you cause an injury at work to someone else, typically the public, flood someone's home etc


Indemnity insurance- bad workmanship, you making a costly mistake etc

Contractors all risk- typically used more in commercial than domestic. Very similar cover to indemnity.

I am no insurance expert but hope that has cleared some things up.

Best of luck with your situation.

 

[PaulDtiler]

Bet they got food poisoning on holiday & lost there luggage & wiplash on the plane home !!!!!!

 

[Andrew Anaxagoras]

Typical,come in at a low price thinking your doing someone a good turn while every other trade rip the arse out of it!!!!!! And they come after u !?! Sympathies bud. Suck it up and take a sparks or plumber course so u can rip people off legitimately