Poor Quality Tiling / Refusing Receipts

[Deleted member 9966]

getting the tiling re-done is gonna be very expensive too. you now have to decide whether you can stand that someone has ripped you off and will get away with you so you're left to get the mess fixed, or bite the bullet and pass this on to a solicitor who may be able to rescue you from this nightmare. i know which i'd prefer to do.

 

[Stewart]

GirlRacerRed is right...... If you feel you are being ripped off, then you have to act on it...... otherwise, they move on to the next customer and rip them off! I know it's it's easy to say on a forum.... but I wouldn't accept anyone taking advantage of me in anyway, shape or form. If a lawyer needs to be involved, then an initial letter doesn't cost that much, and may get the ball rolling for a satisfactory conclusion!

 

[Olz]

My opinion hasnt changed, letter telling him you want him to sort the issues, if he doesnt take him to small claims court, a county court judge works on the 'balance of probability' not 'beyond all reasonable doubt' like a criminal court.

I would think a county court judge would find it very strange that person A would do work in your home yet you would issue court proceedings against person b who was completley unconnected when you werent happy with it, its a ridicoulous notion and I cant see this joker convincing a judge that he hasnt been any where near your house, you could just get your neighbour to go along with you as a witness to the fact that this guy did your house.

Were the receipts he took for stuff you gave him the money to go and buy for you OR for items he was supplying as part of the job, A small difference but important.

When I supply materials, the customer obviously pays for them, but I SUPPLY them and I keep the reciepts, there mine, the customer gets an invoice for the job and mats.

If you bought the stuff and he just picked it up, taking money you gave him specifically for the materials to the store then their your reciepts.

Write to him like I suggested, see what happens, there's no point in speculating and getting yourself more upset without trying the process and seeing what happens.

You could even draft out the court application stating the facts and send him a copy with the letter, to show him your serious and include a line in the letter stating that if he doesnt do what you ask you will issue the claim as enclosed.

 

[jackal792]

Were the receipts he took for stuff you gave him the money to go and buy for you OR for items he was supplying as part of the job, A small difference but important.

He took receipts for the stuff he was supplying but also for things like Halogen Lights and underfloor heating which he also supplied, they were all photocopies of the original.

He also took all written quotes and the receipt for the payment which we assume were for our records.

We asked him for the receipts for the lights and underfloor heating in case we needed to contact the supplier for guarantee purposes, he provided these shortly after walking away from the job.

 

[Olz]

Who photocopied them, you or him?

You should send the letter and see what happens. Include in the letter that you would also like a reciept for payment made.

I dont think there is any legal obligation to provide you with any reciepts for anything he has supplied to you, the likley hood is that he has bought items at trade discount and not passed the discount on to you, so he has made some profit on the materials, this is common practice.

He should provide you with a reciept for your payment to him.

I understand why you want them, incase there are any warranty claims to be made, but if he made you photo copies of them, then decided he wanted the copies back, then theres little you can do, and to be honest, they are small in the grand scheme of things.

Your priority is getting the work done to an acceptable standard, you need to write to him detailing the faults and state you are giving him notice to correct them.

If you dont give him this oppertunity you will not succeed at court.

If he fails to get the work sorted, or he does it again to a poor standard you can get someone else in and then persue the cost back through the court.

Like I said, its for you to go to court if he doesnt sort the work out and put your case forward, let him try and convince a judge he didnt come near your house if he is that stupid.

I cannot stress enought that no matter how much you dislike the idea, you must give him the chance to do the work properly. if you dont you wont have a chance of getting any of your money back.

It costs about £50 to persue the matter at court, if you win you will get this back.

If you do win at court, he will be issued with a CCJ, if he doesnt pay up, you have to arrange for it to be enforced.

If you do this via county court baliffs it will cost you another £100, which will be added onto the debt, they will go a few times then give it up as a bad job if they dont get the money.

You can then look at other enforcement options, they are things like attachment of earnings (pointless i think if he's self employed) or getting a lean on any property he owns, then when he sells, the debt is repaid to you, after the mortgage co take their cut.

You can ask the high court to enforce the debt for you if it is over £500, you might get it to over £500 by the time you've had the added court cost, enforcement cost and transfer up fee.

The high court can issue a writ, then you can have a private baliff enforce it, the baliff will charge fee's which are added to the debt. (think baliffs on the TV programs where debts start low but are hiked up with these fees), i've used private baliffs before, they are usually very effective.

I had to take a customer to court for non payment with no reason.

From sending a letter (ignored), to the solicitor sending a letter (ignored), to the court proceedings (ignored), to the county court baliff enforcing the debt (didnt get the money), to the high court issuing a writ (ignored) to the private baliff finally getting the money it took around 8 months, so its a long process, I was lucky in that the customer didnt have a leg to stand on and ignored everything, if she hadnt it would no doubt have taken twice as long.

I've mentioned the above to give you an idea of how long and drawn out it can be, so like I said, send the letter and see what happens.

He might just realise your not going to be fobbed off and agree to sort things out.

 

[mikethetile]

theres a lot of finer points to the law here which the builder has experiance of

if you cant show you paid him you cant sue him for damages below the original quote as it will be deemed that you have stopped his money to cover it, its proving payment thats the key here and a reciept from a different builder wont do as the builder will claim he has recieved no payment and someone else has used his letterhead

this could turn into an unbelievable mess and end up in court time after time with surveyors reports at 2k a time and no gaurantee of reciving a penny back

jackal can get the job corrected for 300 sobs , I know what I would do

I would swallow the £300 and write to hmrc with an acccount of events

trading standards, even the local press

everyone loves a rogue trader story

I would make his life hell and enjoy every minute of it

 

[adzm124]

It's an interesting thread, but you have to also consider the stress of all this if you choose to go down the 'court' path:
1) At many stages the builder can initiate a 'meeting' to arrange him coming and fixing the problems, and that could stall things for longer, and people do use this method to draw things out further. Even if it's agreed to come and fix things, you still have no guarantee that the work will be done satisfactorily.
2) Another thing, other than the stress, is the possiblity of negative feelings etc from the builder, possible repurcussions?
3) Even if the court rules in your favour, he might have no provable income, therefore no way of paying you - this could go on indefinitely.
Even though you've had this terrible experience, it could be better to live with it, until it can be changed by someone who cares about their quality of workmanship.
I know it's not ideal, I would be furious too, but in the long term is it worth the stress when you might get to the end and receive nothing.
I've seen it happen to a client I worked for (I wasn't the problem !) with a main contractor, who charged for all sorts of things including under-pinning which was never done, but paid for, the whole thing went to court, court ruled in favour, but 2 years later no money has been received and the client was quite ill with heart problems. He got better but recieved nothing to date.
Just a thought.
Is it still illegal to fire nail guns through hands?

 

[Deleted member 9966]

no it's not adzm124 and neither do we condone any actions involving nail guns and human limbs.

 

[adzm124]

No? How about toffee hammers and thumbs?

 

[Colour Republic]

No? How about toffee hammers and thumbs?

No still too much

A kick in the shins is fine though

 

[mikethetile]

are you the fixer trying to warn your client off

 

[adzm124]

I've got the mice from the premier inns advert, on stand-by.

 

[Deleted member 9966]

Are they mice? I thought one was a bear in a gold chain and white bathrobe :lol: he's soooo cute.

 

[adzm124]

They look like mice if you squint, or white moles?

 

[jackal792]

We've sent them a letter detailing a couple of options to resolve things.
We are going to follow the advice from consumer direct / solicitor via our home legal protection.

Letter initially giving them chance to resolve and then fairly simple small claims court if need be.

We'd rather attempt to resolve it than do absolutely nothing or they are going to think they got away with it! We have been lucky in that its not a huge sum but we would hate to see it happen to someone else!