I've posted about this before, but long story short is that we had major building work done. It massively overran (3 months became 8). We paid all invoices straight away. We agreed some extras and paid separate invoices for these as soon as they were issued. Paid the final invoice the day that we got the completion certificate from Building Control.
Several weeks after completion the builder sent a new invoice for £1600. It was for various extras. None of them had been discussed or quoted for. We weren't happy but offered around £400. We thought this was fair and it covered items which although not agreed, had been done and weren't in the original spec.
The rest of the things he was invoicing for were either stand alone items already specified in previous invoices and paid for, or things which were included in larger aspects of the work.
For example, he wanted over £500 extra for moving drainage in the kitchen. He'd got drawings of the new kitchen, saw the old one (so knew that the sink etc had moved) and the new kitchen was waiting on site before he quoted.
Anyway, we offered him a full and final settlement of just over £600. He rejected it, we offered it again.
He's just emailed. He's rejecting our offer and says if we don't pay the full amount within 21 days he'll take us to small claims.
What now? How likely is this to get to court? Home insurance legal cover people won't advise us until we receive the court paperwork.
Every time we've responded it's then taken him at least 4 weeks to get back to us. This is so stressful and horrible. Any advice would be welcome.
If we do end up in small claims, what's it actually like?
Should we retract our offer now and tell him we'll await instruction, or leave it on the table, or pay him what we think is fair?
Help.