AIBU to take this further?

[Pintsizedblondie197]

Had a decorator in last Friday to put some wallpaper up in my downstairs toilet. He did a diabolical job. Cutting isn't straight, pieces overlapped, gaps galore between pieces, pattern doesn't run on correctly and paper doesn't run flush to the door frame. The paper was Harlequin and £55 a roll so to say I am upset was an understatement. Decorator charged £60 for labour.

I messaged to say I was unhappy with it after properly looking over it at the weekend, he offered to basically come back and "bodge" it. I said no as I thought it would make it worse and when I'd spent that amount on wallpaper as well, I didn't want that doing. I asked for the £60 back and he said he'd pay it once he'd received some unpaid invoices.

It's now Thursday and I'm as of yet to receive the money. If I don't receive it soon, I'm tempted to take it to the small claims court as even if I did get my £60 back, I'm still £110 out of pocket for the wallpaper and will also need to pay to get it fixed. I don't have any experience of small claims court, would my claim likely to be successful in this instance and would you take it this far or simply pass it off as an expensive mistake if he were to send the £60 as promised?

I would. That sounds completely unacceptable.

I don't know about your likely success in small claims, but it seems like a lot of stress for a small amount when you'll still be out of pocket. Perhaps threatening him with small claims might get him to cough up?

£60 seems ridiculously cheap, assuming he had to prepare it, doing all the fiddly bits you get in a small room etc, and if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. I don't say that to make you feel worse, but it's worth bearing in mind so you don't make the same mistake again.

£60? You absolutely get what you pay for.

It's only a small bathroom, but I do agree it was too good to be true. I did check out his previous work and it all seemed fine but in hindsight next time I will think twice.

£60?!?!?!? My husband is a painter and decorator, an excellent one and extremely reasonable but he would charge more than that

£60 is a very small amount, that’s true. But he said he could do it for that amount and didn’t. Photos of the work?

Do you have photos? Would it really be worth going tonsmall claims for that amount?

Just a few examples of the workmanship.

Oh bless him. Actually I am going to change my mind, OP (sorry). He clearly hasn’t got a clue what he’s doing. For £60 that’s not necessarily his fault. That’s not just sloppy, it’s like he’s never done it before.

Where the hell did you find him?

You could take whoever sold you that paper for £55 a roll to small claims though.

Apparently he has 15 years experience!

Yeah, but in what? 😂

@user18435677565533 he was recommended from my estate's Facebook group!

@flaviaritt wallpapering with his eyes shut apparently

😂

Fuck me i did a better job than that guy in my flat and i'm a fucking idiot!

Definitely threaten him with small claims thats a shocker.

[quote Pintsizedblondie197]@user18435677565533 he was recommended from my estate's Facebook group![/quote]
In my experience whenever people ask for recs on local groups the responses are just a bunch of people tagging their partners/relatives/good mates and giving fake opinions that their work is really good

I suspected you were going to say Facebook.

My most generous suggestion is that perhaps it is a case of identity theft, and there is a genuinely competent decorator out there blissfully unaware this guy is out besmirching his reputation.

Small claims process is very straightforward.

https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money

You can ask for interest, and choose when the interest clock starts. This gives him an incentive to pay you sooner rather than later, to avoid interest clocking up.

Worth every penny of the £25 filing fee and very satisfying when they pay up.

Even I could do better than that! Man alive.

You get what you pay for. To have spent that much on wallpaper and not gone off a friends recommendation but with a cheap labourer I'd say you've no chance of seeing your money again.

@FinallyHere would I be able to claim for the cost of the wallpaper as well do you know?

Did you pay him before he did the job or after?

id say try not to rely on a "friends" recommendation and if possible try to see previous examples of x , plus the whole eg 15 years, puzzles me when tradesman say that, because yes you can say they have been at eg diy for 15 years but then they could of only spent a small part of it doing eg wallpapering so when someone says its x years, it does not really give any credibility to there skill base in some instances.