Need urgent advice for my in laws!!!

[curiousgeorgie]

My in laws had a huge refurbishment of their house this year, which has just finished.

They've stupidly made the final payment and now discovered that none of the rewiring has actually been done on the old parts of the house (as stated in the contract.) they only have a certificate for the extension, and just discovered upon moving back in that its all been lied about.

There are other things in the contract too... Painting of skirting boards, other woodwork, the instillation of several lights, all hasn't been done. The clean up is terrible too.

Do they have a leg to stand on as they've already paid him? They're quite elderly and just paid it without consulting anybody and I'm so annoyed and really feel they've been taken advantage of.

I've emailed the builder my concerns and have no reply.

I checked him out online and he had nothing but good feedback!

What's my next step??

This is based on the limited info in your post and your in laws position may be more complicated than this simple analysis.

In simple terms it appears he is in breach of contract i.e. he hasn't done the work that the contract stated he should do and some of the work he did is not of the standard you would reasonably expect from a builder with his skill and experience.

Whilst they could ask him to rectify the faults I don't know if they would trust him to do so. They could get another builder in to do the work and then sue him in the small claims court for the cost of the remedial work (they would have to pay the initial court costs to do this but don't need a lawyer). They could also look at reporting him to trading standards.

If you have a contract which states these things hold have been done and you have paid for them then you have a leg to stand on. You should write to the builder outlying all of your concerns, stating here the work done deviates from the contract. Send by recorded delivery and give seven days for a response. Your local trading standards office should be able to advise you further. You will probably need to get an independent contractor to verify that the Work hasn't been done. You can lodge a claim in small claims court also but make sure you ave all of your paperwork in order. Keep a log of all of your contact whether by letter or phone. You have to give him an opportunity to rectify the fault but you can give a time limit. Good luck.

You might want to have this moved to Legal Matters
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/legal_matters

Just report your post to MNHQ and ask them in the comments section to move your post.

Okay, thanks.

The right to rectify is complex so I would agree with dazzling that they should give a relatively limited timeframe for him to rectify the faults.