Devastated - can't believe my builder did this

How big is the extension? A single storey takes 12 weeks max and frankly that’s being generous. This builder sounds useless. He will definitely try and charge you for this clearing work. I would be billing him personally to replace all the plants

I thought OP made the thread because she is understandably upset. However, she is vague on details about what was agreed apart from "clear the garden". She doesn't say what the scope of works includes, so we are all speculating based on "clear the garden", which means different things to different people.

I'm not saying the builder was necessarily right, but I can see why there was a misunderstanding when after allowing the garden to be neglected and used as a dump for years, the husband gave instruction for the builder to clear it without any further clarification and left them to it.

Oh op that’s awful. Why on earth would they do that? I’m so sorry I’m not surprised you are devastated.

Especially when the renovation overran by nearly a year (!!!), they managed to do a huge job in 8 hours? Sure

Yes it may be a lie, but people do get cancer,and people do die every day and presumably some of them are related to builders

Sounds like some mis-communication going on here. I’d be gutted too😢

Do you have before and after pictures? Posting them here might help you get better advice but you also need them for legal action, which you must absolutely consider taking. Step 1 would be to withhold part of the final bill then the onus is on him to sue you for the money. £1k is probably not enough.

Did he dig out the shrubs and trees or just cut them down to stumps? This is insane- nobody cuts down trees without proper discussion. I was gutted enough when my husband failed to water my window boxes and the plants died when I was away, can’t imagine how this must feel.

That was my thought too. Does OP know for a fact that builders mother has cancer. I sound like a heartless bitch but have had 2 builders lay the “ wife/ mother has cancer” story and in one case at least builder was a crook ( made it into local papers, sentenced and went to prison). Also member of staff has had an accident, can’t come today I’m off to A and E, etc etc. It’s usually a prelude to going missing on the job.

Not sure I agree completely. Although understand the point and would probably be glad to see the back of them but there were plants with history - trees that had come from a loved garden - this is just vandalism. Plants are expensive anyway, they’ve stolen your property AND some of them were irreplaceable. it’s surely a very swift phone call to the builders to say my husband is a tool and I want my plants back if they are still in a skip somewhere. You don’t pull out trees for goodness’ sake. And how could they imagine that ‘am I ok to clear the garden?’ means pull out trees, it simply doesn’t. OP call them today and stand your ground. And OP I’m sorry but however much my husband didn’t like confrontation I would be furious with him if he saw this happen and didn’t stop it after the first shrub. It’s ridiculous!

Ah OP I’m so sorry.
I had a large extension for my disabled DD. Our builders made some mistakes (like not widening the front door) which they had to re-do. Anything like that they did swiftly and either good grace.
Building projects often overrun for various reasons and I wouldn’t not pay on that basis alone.
But it’s incomprehensible that the agreed works (as per your original quote) was overlooked and to raze the garden because he failed to remove his waste as he went the way he should have.
My builders were told not to touch the rose bed even though they were levelling the rest of the garden and moving established trees and removing particular established bushes and they did it properly.
Give him a call and tell him it’s gone wrong. Let him lead on explanation. Decide what you want to do after that.

This doesn’t make sense I think you need to go back to your DH to understand more.

why would a builder ask his permission to clean up after themselves? This implies in itself that they were gaining permission for something different.

what was your DH doing to be so oblivious to what was going on around him? This wouldn’t have been a quick thing. You have said your DH hates confrontation is there a chance he just stood there and watched it happen?

Or he might have been true and he was shocked at your reaction

Well contracts can certainly be verbal. It is pretty usual to agree amendments to a contract as it progresses.
The court would wonder where the motivation was for the builder to undertake this work if there was no authority to perform it, and he wouldn't get paid.

I'm another one who has heard allll the cancer stories from trades. And the daughter/wife who has been rushed to hospital. 🙄

I presume the toot sweets are sugar-free gummy bears. Those little horrors bring everything fully out into the open.

Ah come on there must be more to this that the husbands saying. Why would he remove all of that when it comes at a cost to dispose of it? Your husband didn’t notice they were ripping it out?

Tell the builder (in writing) that he damaged perennials, valuable fruit trees and that you're heartbroken.

Even if he won't apologise, compensate you or anything comparable. You will have voiced your grief (and the likelihood of ending up with a bill for the "gardening" will dramaticalyl decrease). Whenever I've chosen to "hold in" my pain I still had to deal with it years later.

Do they lay block paving or tarmac as well? If so, do they say they're going to 'clear the driveway' after (eventually) finishing the job and then get your car towed away too?!

This makes no sense. It's a huge job to remove an established and overgrown garden that would generate a massive amount of waste. They'd need heavy machinery to scrape your lawn up and dig out trees, chippers to break down the material, skips/lorries to take it away. And your husband is claiming he never noticed any of this work going on? Does not add up.

I agree - I don't get the juxtaposition at all. If, say, somebody had been dangerously trapped inside a large thicket and it all had to be hacked out of the way to rescue them, then it would make sense to say "It's only trees"; but on what planet does it make any kind of sense to say that, because somebody is very ill (if this is actually true anyway), that justifies randomly destroying established greenery? It's not like ripping out trees is going to magically cure the very ill person.

Perhaps. But then OP never would have made a thread would she, because she wouldn't be surprised that he'd decimated her garden? There would be an updated estimate/quote with 'Clear and make good the garden' or 'Clear the garden of all rubbish, debris, plants, lawn, and trees, and dispose.'

...IF they were compliant with consumer laws. Traders cannot unilaterally decide to do unauthorised work and bill for it as a fait accompli. Traders also cannot destroy or remove property (whether mistake or deliberate) with no liability. Traders cannot adjust the agreed scope at all (up, down, or sideways) without getting clear, itemised agreement from the consumer. Many flout this of course out of either laziness or being dodgy, but customers simply don't realise so they get away with it.

The law is very clear on this. Unless there is a written agreement saying that 'clear the garden' meant 'rip up the lawn and remove all trees and bushes' then it was unauthorised work that led to damage and he's liable. Vague claims of 'oh the DH said it was ok, we discussed it, it was all verbal' don't cut it legally.

You're basically saying, 'There was a misinterpretation, and the damage is done so the builder's interpretation wins.' Check Section 69 of the Consumer Rights Act - the consumer's interpretation prevails, not the trader's.

OP is perfectly within her rights to cost up the total of making good his damage and deduct it from the final bill, and if the builder has a problem, he can pursue her and let a court side with her and cost him even more.

Phone your builder at 8am today and tell him that removing all your plants was not in the agreed work. Tell him to return the plants so you can go through them and see what is salvageable and can be replanted. You can then decide if you want to withhold any payment as compensation.

I hope you had a detailed contract of works as that will put you in a strong position to say this was not included. Though I suspect if you did, the builder would have had more sense than to remove your garden.

You always need a written detailed statement of what is included in the works. It protects you and the contractor.

One things for sure though…. We will never know the truth!

although we can be pretty sure this builder didn’t manage to pull up established trees, lawn, bushes plants and dispose of a year’s worth of rubbish in the time DH was at work! 😆

It’s so weird it almost sounds like he was given the wrong address for the project. Unless so many people also have the garden ripped out and given the Love Island villa treatment after building work that they assumed you’d be doing the same

I'd guess the garden looked trashed and builder assumed it was to be cleared fully

And I doubt the trees were tall and established. If they were, removing them would be a big job and it's hard to see why a builder would even consider removing them

Disappointing and frustrating but important to keep sense of perspective