We had a ground floor extension added to our property at the start of this year. The builder was recommended by a friend of a friend who had worked with him. We checked out all his references, went to see his work, etc. and his wasn't the cheapest quote by a long shot, so we felt fairly confident he was a good choice.
Unfortunately, he turned out to be a cowboy. We had no end of problems during the build, but the real problems started post-build.
We discovered all sorts of problems which have cost us nearly £10k to put right, including:
- not fitting the drains under the new kitchen properly, plus fitting the manhole at the back of the property the wrong way round. Within a few months of his men finishing, we had sewage floating up into the garden and had to pay a drains specialist £6k to fix it. This involved taking up the kitchen floor and digging down through the underfloor heating which was a huge job.
- refusing to provide the gas & elec safety certificates. We had to pay a plumber and an electrician to come and inspect the work; neither could believe the poor standard of installation and we had to pay over £1k more to bring it up to regulation standards.
- didn't waterproof our neighbour's roof properly (terraced row) meaning we had to get a roofer in to put it right.
We've tried to contact the builder repeatedly but he's totally ignored us and changed his mobile number.
I have sent a Letter of Claim to his email address, home address and his new mobile number (kindly offered up by one of the references he used who was horrified to hear what had happened). I took screen shots on Whatsapp to show that he had read the message informing him of the Letter of Claim, but of course he promptly blocked me and didn't respond within the 14 day deadline.
I was all set to press ahead with the legal claim until I realised how high the fees would be. It will be £415 to submit the claim, then more at each further stage to pursue the debt. I'm confident we would win the case but I worry we are just throwing more money away and will never get it back. It could be as much as £1k in fees and we may never get a penny out of him. He is Polish and his wife and kids live over there so he could well disappear back home, although to be honest I would see that as a good result as I'd know he wasn't still here doing the same thing to other people. It has been incredibly stressful for us and I hate to think of him moving on to the next poor sucker.
We know that he is still in the country and working as he has recently done some work for one of the references we contacted. We think he may have moved house though, as we have been to his address a few times but can't see his car or van.
I'd love to know what others would do in our situation. Would you just draw a line under the whole thing and write the money off, or would you want to take him to court and hopefully stop him doing this again?
Thanks for reading!
