Question about kitchen company - long (apologies!)

[icanteven]

My father ordered a kitchen from a well known kitchen company in the UK. He paid about 8k for a full service - new kitchen + marble worktop, floor tiles, rearranging some old-school plumbing through the ceiling, so also a new ceiling with recessed lighting, painting everything afterwards. A turnkey service. All great. Company a little flaky - ordered wrong colour marble etc. but my Dad overthinks stuff, so he triple checked with them and caught the mistake, so all well. Start date on the 18th of August, 1 week installation (very small kitchen - the room is little more than 2m x 3m).

A month later, 3 botched plumbing jobs, holes gouged through his walls (they did the ceiling, then remembered they'd forgotten to put the main pipe through, so fed it around the apartment instead), replacement units because contractor's assistant cut the backs off them by mistake (standard practice, according to contractor...), Dad now has floor tiles down (not yet grouted), some carcasses in place, holes in his walls, kitchen units strewn around his apartment, and a contractor who is going to "try to fit in a couple of hours this afternoon if he can."

The contractor is a young guy who has clearly overstretched himself and is doing as many jobs as he can for as little as possible by hiring inexperienced help. His labourers are all about 20 years old and don't know what they're doing, but (when he bothers turning up) he leaves them at the site and goes off to another site himself leaving them to themselves - sometimes they know what they're doing, sometimes they cut the backs off the cupboards. He is HUGELY defensive, blames my Dad for spotting the hacked cupboards (thus causing a delay while they were replaced), blames my Dad for noticing that the stopcock also turned off the water in the adjacent apartment (thus causing another delay because the - inept - plumber had to come back) and so on and so forth.

My Dad is sick with anxiety. He also has had no cooking or laundry facilities for a month, and no immediate prospect of having it finished.

He booked the work for a time when I was away so he could stay at my house, but I've been back since the 7th, so it has been uncomfortable for him, and too costly to stay in a hotel the whole time. Also not possible to go back to Ireland, as builders needed supervision etc.

I'm so sorry this was so long, but can anybody speculate as to what recourse he might have to them? It has been a hideous experience. There is still £1900 outstanding for the install, due at the end.

I feel that if they can't get it finished by this week, he could take them to court to reinstate the old kitchen and give him his money back. Obv. a lot of faff involved there.

Can he wait for them to finish (this week? who knows?) and then demand they write off the £1900 as compensation for the considerable distress, inconvenience and delay (4 weeks of HORROR at his apartment - it's ghastly)?

Refuse to let them back into the apartment and have his own carpenter finish the job (everything is there in the flat except the marble countertop)?

Is he really just at their mercy until the sleeveen of a contractor sees fit to come back?

[eternalopt]

Who's his contract with - big kitchen co or contractor direct?

[eternalopt]

And what does the contract say about how long it will take (you've clearly got a claim for bad quality. I'm just wondering about delay claim)