Builder just walked out!

[FebruaryPosting]

We’re 9 weeks into a 10 week build.
I’ve just had an email from the builder saying they’re terminating the contract with immediate effect.
They said due to ‘friction’. The only friction was them installing a cloakroom toilet I didn’t like and that wasn’t discussed, and them putting a ridge on the top of the bathroom tiles that looked odd. That’s it.

We’ve paid over £50k to them, and the last week was going to be a snagging list, like putting doors in, plastering the ceiling on the landing, touching up paint where they created a leak etc, which we were going to pay extra (£4k) for.

But, we’ve already paid over £4k for the cloakroom, and they’ve only put a loo and sink in?! No tiling, decorating, taking out an air vent…all of which was supposed to be included!
The kitchen/diner we paid over £20k for (plus £10k for the actual kitchen) and they’ve not finished the painting and other areas. We paid £3500 for them to level and lay the floor. The floor isn’t level.
The bathroom we’ve paid almost £10k for, and there’s no floor, the towel rail doesn’t work, and it’s not been painted….

There’s also other things paid for that we haven’t got/hasn’t been finished.

Can we take him to small claims to retrieve some of the cost we’ve paid out?

We had a quote with a payment schedule. The schedule said when each payment was due, and had how much was allocated to each room, i.e. £9k due on X date, £9k due 2 weeks later etc. And it had £4k - cloakroom, £10k - bathroom, £20k - kitchen/diner etc.

I was here every day, was available to speak to, but unless I went up to him to ask about something he didn’t ever ask me anything. I just thought he would when I needed to make a decision on things like the cloakroom and bathroom etc.
Even with the bathroom, he said ‘I’ve sourced some nice marble tiles and I’ll tile the whole room’ and I said that wasn’t what we wanted (I actually hate the marble look), and we wanted white brick tiles just over the bath/sink and in the shower, and for the room to just be painted white. He said it would look like a dentist (!), and I said we have pictures to put up, and the floor is going to be patterned, so it won’t.

You could try mediation. Is he a member of check a trade for example? They offer a mediation service. A lot of customers try and get out of end payments on any basis they can. You've probably queried a few things and he's expecting the worst as this happens so often (oh is a builder) .
Good luck, it's awful for you having everything half finished. If he has good reviews etc you may find a polite email and the weekend to calm down you can get a resolution

Your card issuer might still be able to help, even though it was a debit card www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/everyday-money/credit-and-purchases/how-youre-protected-when-you-pay-by-card#debit-card-payment-protection-and-chargeback

Really feel for you, I've got a friend going through similar with a builder at the end of a project and it's a total pain and totally takes the shine off it.

Going forward, if all the structural stuff is done, it might be easier and cheaper to get individual trades in to put right/finish the job than a general builder. IME they are more reliant on doing 'small' jobs so easier to get them to do work. We're doing a partial renovation and haven't had any significant problems with getting plumbers/joiners/plasterers etc in. Prices not exorbitant either.

Let.us know what happens 🙂

You can do an online claim, but if he disputes it and asks for a hearing you will need a solicitor to prepare all the paperwork down to every last detail. It’s a nightmare, small claims court is not as easy as people think it is!

I’d be pretty pissed if I paid 10k for a bathroom suite I didn’t even get to choose and was left with a bad tile job like that .

Seems like he’s having cash flow problems and tried to make do with random stuff he had as doesn’t have cash to finish job , probably used your money to finish something else .

I’ve taken Norwich Union to small claims before, albeit a very long time ago, when they would only pay out half the claim. We won. We would 100% go down this route if he doesn’t refund us what we want, which is £3-4k, so in the grand scheme of things it’s not a lot when we’ve paid him over £55k.
We’re only wanting money back for the unfinished jobs, not even compensation for leaving us in the lurch.
My OH prepared my court documents when an ex employer threatened to take me to the High Court (over restricted covenants).

The most disappointing thing is he’s been at our house for 2 months now, has got to know us and our 5 year old, and, I dunno, I maybe thought as a family man himself he wouldn’t do this and leave every room unfinished.

Another question: why didn't you source the bathroom suite and other fittings yourself? I just can't imagine leaving what are basically interior design decisions to my builder! When we did our refurb we ordered and paid for everything ourselves and then the builder and his team fitted it as part of his overall fee.

Sounds like you've had a nightmare but materials have done up and if you refuse to pay those costs, I'm not sure why he should be expected to? Things like this - whilst absolutely not justifying shoddy work - will be why he isn't keen to work for you.

Did the quote make any mention of it being accurate at that time and subject to material costs? My DP is having to add that to quotes now.

Yes but surely there should be a conversation...i.e. builder coming to client the materials to do a,b,c have increased by x%. I can stick to the original plan and pass the cost on or you can comprise on what materials you originally wanted in order to stay in budget.

I think the majority of posters on this thread think this is AIBU and not the Legal Board.

OP, I urge you to only listen to the advice of prh47bridge who is a lawyer. Most other replies are opinions which are quite frankly ridiculous and unhelpful.

Follow this advice and this advice alone. I wish you the best!

No mention about costs going up if materials did. If he’d communicated that with us we could have made informed decisions. We went with 5 bifolds sheets instead of 3, but if he’d said the cost was higher we could have decided if we went back to 3. But he didn’t. He put the extra cost in an invoice 3 weeks after he’d ordered the bifolds.
Even the extra £500 he added to the invoice without telling us, if he’d mentioned it before, said costs had gone up, we’d have probably paid it. It was the fact he didn’t communicate that with us, and I was worried if I’d just paid it he would have added £500 to the next invoice, and to the next…and we’d then be owing £5k or something for ‘cost increases’.

The other thing I’ve just remembered that we had a chat about, is that on a Friday morning a couple of weeks ago. I asked him to please not leave all his tools/saws/drills in the dining room (on the new floor) over the weekend, as our 5 year old plays in there and I didn’t want 1) him getting hurt, or 2) something falling and damaging the floor. I said he could put everything in our (secure/locked) garage. He said that was fine (9am).
At 5:30pm there were things in the dining room, I asked if he was moving them before he left and he said no. I said we’d spoken that morning about it, and he said ‘they’re not in the way, I’ve put them neatly against the wall’ and I said I didn’t want them left there over the weekend, and he was welcome to leave them all in the garage. He got huffy about it, started shouting at me saying he didn’t want to be there at 5:30pm, and if he moved them he’d have to do it now. I was a bit taken aback, and just said ‘But we spoke about this this morning and you said it was fine?’ but he started packing up and I just went in another room.

NameChangePoP - Thanks, I’ve read many of prh47bridge replies over the years, and know they know their stuff! 😊

@DreamingofGinoclock absolutely! The builder sounds like he's underquoted for the whole work.

It's little things like this that can sour a relationship. And I mean that from your point of view. It's not okay to just leave tools laying around and I know that my DP wouldn't do that (I know that because they're all over my house instead)!

Sounds like it's been quite a testing experience from the outset.

You are now on a very difficult position. The chances of doing small claims and getting anything is small and could take ages. He clearly wants to start a new job on Monday.
I would text and not mention any of the problem areas. Just beg him to finish some of the other agreed bits, tomorrow and Sunday? This is degrading to you, but I can't see any way you can get him back in your house!

There's very limited risk in pursuing a claim in the small claims court. If OP is 100% ready to accept this builder isn't going to finish the work and is happy to get into a dispute, it's easy to prepare the claim form / particulars of claim. Very low risk costs wise.

If you do go down that route, work out the cost of rectifying his poor workmanship and include those costs too.

If you go to small claims he might claim he can't afford to pay and you'll get £1 a week. Please try mediation. Also, why was it left to the builder to get bathroom fittings etc?

minidancer - the fittings were included in the quote, and he said at the start he’d give us a book to pick from, but that never materialised.
With our old house we had a loft conversion done, and we did buy the en-suite fittings and the builder took those off the quote. We just thought ‘It’s included in the price, we only want white items nothing fancy, so we’ll just pick those from the book’. Sounded so easy.

I don't mean this as a criticism and again, doesn't excuse the builder in anyway but communication works both ways. How can you be 9 weeks into a build having not looked at the 'book' to choose fittings etc?

We had our bathroom tiled a while ago, we chose and bought the tiles ourselves but the tiler did bring round a few different types of grout and asked us which one we wanted to use. Did you choose those actual tiles or is that what he bought based on what you'd said to him?

The lack of communication from between you and the builder just seems very unusual.

OP is saying the price hadn’t gone up but that he should discuss this and give them the option to change to something cheaper etc not just go ahead and dump an extra £500 on the bill afterwards!

People on here have such low expectations of proper contracts and also seem so quick to judge OP who it appears to me is simply trying to have a say over work in her own home.

Sone of what he has done seems shoddy OP and you are absolutely right that design and cost decisions should be agreed.

He’s got fed up and decided he’s had enough cash out of it to mean he wants to move on next week. It’s classic behaviour sadly. Not sure how you solve it other than threaten bad reviews if he doesn’t finish off the bulk of what was agreed but chances are he won’t do it with any care so you might be better doing it yourselves or finding someone else sadly. Feel for you though.

kirinm - we had three areas done - kitchen/diner, cloakroom and bathroom. He didn't start one, finish it and then move on, he would do a bit in each when he could, i.e. when the plasterers were in the kitchen/diner he started the cloakroom, then went back to the kitchen diner when the plaster was dry, but also started on the bathroom removing the wall.

We didn't know when we needed to pick stuff, we relied on him telling us as he said he would when it needed choosing.
Even with the bathroom suite, after the issue with the cloakroom, I sat down with him and his book, said 'This is what I want in the bathroom' and he's gone and put a completely different toilet lid on, and different shower in.

Dancingdoggo - I think you're right, he's made enough money to just walk away and start his new project on Monday, and thinks he's doing us a favour by not charging us for the final £4k! It's like he thinks that counteracts what we've paid him.

I guess luckily the things that need finishing are smaller things, like fitting 3 doors and frames, painting, finishing off some chipped brickwork outside etc.

@Inkpotlover im not sure why you’ve quoted me - I’d made exactly the same point as you.

That was me agreeing with you, because you were spot on! I should've made that clearer in my reply.