Letter to crap joiner - could you take a look?

[JumpJockey]

In summary, joiner made us a door and window that were the wrong size, and didn't look like the quotation. We had £150 extra charged by our builder to make up for wrong size door, the joiner has said they'll 'honour the charges' but won't offer any more discount (original thread here www.mumsnet.com/Talk/property/962399-Door-that-doesn-39-t-fit-the-hole-long )

I've written this letter - does it sound reasonable, and in any way legally binding?

Dear Mr X,

Thank you for your letter dated 28 June regarding final payment for the door and window you supplied. There are several points we dispute.

Firstly, the deposit paid (which cleared from my account on 30th March) was for £330 but you have only removed £300 from the invoiced sum.

Secondly, we do not feel it is any way reasonable to suggest that you are removing the additional costs of £147.92 incurred from our builder as some kind of ?discount? for inconvenience suffered. The costs were incurred entirely through the incompetence of your firm in supplying a window that was too narrow, and a door that was firstly far too wide and then, even after measuring the opening where our builder had prepared the wall, too shallow for the opening.

Thirdly, it is not true to state that your glazier offered to come after working hours; if this had been offered I would gladly have accepted. What was in fact suggested was that the glazier should come to complete the work while my husband and I were away. It was not reasonable to expect our builders to sign off the work as acceptable and we felt it was important for one of us to be able to check the work was done correctly given the poor performance of your company to that point. Unfortunately the glazier then arrived an hour later than I had been told to expect him, and without his tools, meaning the work was delayed by a second hour as he returned to the workshop to fetch them and what could have been a short time off work dragged into a full afternoon.

In addition, you have still failed to address our complaint that the door does not match the illustration on your quotation letter, despite this saying ?Diagrams of windows, doors and frames indicate style viewed from the outside?. You state in your email of May 13th ?The illustration on the quotation is not a workshop drawing , I'm sorry I did not know you had specific details ? on hind sight there should have been some drawings either by yourself or our work drawings for you to view first?. As I am not a professional joiner, it is not reasonable to expect me to provide drawings; I believed that as stated the finished product would match the illustration. Instead of the plain lower panel in the illustration, the door provided has a decorative panel which does not fit with the style of the doors throughout the rest of the house.

In conclusion we do not accept that the removal of charges incurred from our builder through the incompetence of your firm in any way compensates for the inconvenience we suffered. In addition the sum of £30 remains to be removed. This gives a final total of £962.61. We appreciate that you believe you have ?put the job right as quick as possible? but we dispute that things have been put right, since the door still does not match the illustration provided. Consequently we are withholding 25% of the remaining sum in recompense for my loss of earnings, the inconvenience suffered and your failure to provide a door matching the one quoted for. We will be happy to pay the remaining 25% on delivery of a door matching the illustration on the quotation.

[ageing5yearseachyear]

do you want him to supply a matching door? or do you just want to take some money off to make up for it?

if it is the latter, then i think you are being reasonable. If you want a matching door, i think he will be happy to accept the deduction of 25% and you will never hear from him again. Sounds like it will cost you more than this to get the door replaced.

[lalalonglegs]

It's OK although the final par is a bit garbled but, overall, I would be trying to get them to give me the door that I ordered rather than arguing about how much of a discount I wanted.

[JumpJockey]

TBH we just want some money off, the door is ugly but we can live with it. It's more the bloody cheek in suggesting that he's being terribly kind to take off the extra money we had to pay our builder as a 'discount', and the fact that I lost earnings and he's lying about that bit. Basically, they were utterly incompetent (failed to measure up correctly twice) and then rude about it.

We really put in the bit about the matching door to see if he's so bothered about getting a happy customer - as in, if he really wants to leave us pleased with the job, he'll go to the extra effort. Otherwise if he just wants us off his back he can take £250 off for the inconvenience.

[ageing5yearseachyear]

sounds like a good letter then!

[traceface]

Hi JJ. Sounds really good to me - your points are very clear. Is it the joiner's job to fit the door too or just provide it?

[JumpJockey]

We had the builder do the fitting, thank goodness, heaven knows what cowboys the joiner would have sent along...

[LadyThompson]

Heavens to Murgatroyd, JJ, you have had a time with this kitchen. Is 25% enough? I can't see him replacing the door, tbh. Asked DP about the legal angle and it's not his area but he thinks that withholding money might put you on a slightly sticky wicket legally (though is obviously entirely reasonable morally!) but is mitigated by the fact that you have given him a choice to put it right. If you are going to withhold money, though, he suggests 'particularising your loss' - ie, saying precisely what you withholding for which bit. Don't know if that is at all helpful. Good luck.