To wonder if anyone else has had a dodgy runaway builder?

[Overnightoats1]

What was supposed to have been a very exciting time has turned to one of considerable stress. We had saved and saved to do a considerable renovation and went with a builder recommended by the architect. A couple of months in the cracks started to show with some contractors telling us they hadn't been paid and on digging further we realised big items like windows - that we had paid him for - hadht been paid for - he has now said he is going into liquidation and has run off with our deposit and left us with a few walls, a ruined garden , no roof and about £70k poorer.. the worst part of this is we know he has done this to others too but that he'll simply set up again and again and do the same thing to others.. has anyone heard of one of these guys actually going to jail or having any kind of repercussion? I feel so helpless and wondered if anyone who has been in the same situation before had any advice.. apparently the police prefer not to do anything with these guys as it's a lot of man hours and harder to convict.. Thanks for reading if you got this far!

Not me but my friend, she had to sell the house via auction and lost so much. No idea what became of the builder. It’s been a devastating situation.

Yes we did.
to the point I will never, ever purchase a house which requires an extension or. Anything other than a lick of paint ever again.
ours ran off with £30k and we literally had to spend another £75k to rectify and finish our double storey extension.
bizarrely enough, ours was for windows too! All oak which apparently never got ordered!
not worth chasing through courts because would cost us more money and prob never get anything other than a £1 a week!
We have now fallen out of love with what was meant to be our perfect home, I can’t wait to sell this year and be done with it.
trust nobody!
the business wasn’t owned by a man with initials DA was it?

Report to trading standards and action fraud,l

Get in touch with an ombudsman, they will help you in the cause.

So sorry to hear you've gone through this too! It's hugely stressful!
Ours was a CG... I think the worst bit is that he called telling us that he wanted to "complete the build" but would do it under another trading name .. after lies and actual fraud pumping up valuations and including items like steels and windows he hasn't paid for! Horrendous that they can behave like this!!

Apparently it takes the police too long to deal with guys like this so they tend not to do anything despite these guys stealing huge sums of money

Who told you this about the police OP? Was it actually the police themselves, as at the end of the day, this is their job FFS?!! I know that law and order has fallen apart in this country, but this is simply not good enough. If it's true, I would suggest contacting your MP about it, to see what they have to say. It's about time these bloody rogues were brought to book for swindling people out of their savings, so I definitely wouldn't just let this go, in your shoes I would do absolutely EVERYTHING possible to get this guy arrested, as he's basically committing fraud, theft, or both.

My DH has a friend of a friend in the police who told him that unfortunately.. they have so many more violent crimes that they understandably have to prioritise .. and the fraud teams prioritise tax evasion etc that are easier to convict.. it's awful .. hence my post to see if anyone had managed to catch one of these guys and if any of them had actually faced the music for their crimes.. it seems like they all just start up and do it again and again.

Happened to friends of ours. They lost a lot of money. very similar story

Because of all the horror stories my builder was very much in demand and I will tell you why.

He is now retired so I can't recommend him but he would quote you for a job but made it clear the only money he gets is his labour charge and you pay him at the end of the week, so he works, you pay once you have seen the work. He'd invoice us, we paid him directly into his bank account he then produced a receipt. He paid his helper from that money, this was all listed on the invoice so you can see his day rate, his helper's day rate too.

I paid all subcontractors directly to them, none of their money goes through the builder's bank account. The same with all the materials, he would phone through the order to the builder's merchants and then pass the phone to me to pay for the goods. This means we own all the bricks, sand, cement etc.

The total cost for the labour and subcontractors totalled the bill he quoted within £100. He turned up every day at the time he said. No double jobs, just yours. I think this is the best way to run the business. It also meant he could stay under the VAT threshold as he was happy to earn under just under £90k and therefore his quotes were competitive.

It's not happened to me but a friend of mine had similar with her builder. We used to live on the same estate as a builder who we never used as the rumours about him were awful. He took months and months to convert a garage into a kitchen for another neighbour. He messed up windows for another. They did try to get him through the courts but same old issue he had no money so it was a waste of time and just more expense. I think this an area where it all does need better regulations.

Sole trader or limited company? Do they not have insurance you can claim on?

Limited company and no - it looks like we'll have to go after the architect's insurance as there were failures there too.. he agreed release of funds without properly checking valuation but it's so disappointing as he is a good guy and the builder is clearly the swindler getting away with it!

I think this is how they all should operate.. it seems crazy that they don't and that it's so unregulated.. was really hoping I'd hear a story here of someone that had managed to get them. Unfortunately none so far!

No and I generally pay suppliers direct, even if the builder gets a discount I pay direct.
It’s a tough lesson and I’d be asking the architect why he recommended this person if he had form.
If I don’t know a builder I do ring up previous clients (I guess they could fudge this too). I have even gone to see a job in progress. But it’s tough - I went through four plumbers on one project.
I did find a brilliant guy for my last renovation but he’s had cancer since so think he’s doing something less physically taxing. But he was amazing and all his subs were great and took real pride in their work. On the higher side price wise but so worth it.

This is not my experience of police at all. Why not report and put the ball in their court. Trading Standards were also really helpful.

Thank you! That's good to hear-
I'm going to try today .. just don't want him to get away with this

Electrician not builder for kitchen renovation. Left a plug dangling because "he couldn't get screws long enough" and the other one in that section was so close to the edging board we couldn't get plugs in. Couldn't be arsed(forgot)to put in the under unit lighting. Ghosted us when trying to get him to finish. Then we discovered he'd taken a shortcut installing the consumer unit so a fuse circuit kept tripping. He's got our numbers blocked.
There was a local to us builder taken to court for leaving people in the lurch and fucking off with people's money.