Last May I hired a contractor to sand and stain my engineered wood flooring across my whole flat. In one room, there was some staining after a leak which had left a dark patch on the floor - the contractor said he wasn’t sure if this could be removed but he’d give it a go, and I accepted it may not be successful (figured I could put a rug or otherwise hide it if he wasn’t able to remove it entirely). The contractor who had done this work before was no longer operating, so I took a recommendation from a neighbour who had had good results in her flat and had also recommended him to her parents. The process of engaging him was slightly confusing as I had to physically request a written quote a couple of times for clarity, and his written and spoken English wasn’t perfect so we had a couple of miscommunications, but he came recommended and seemed competent.
Long story short, while he was sanding the floor where the stain was, he obviously either applied the machine for too long or used the wrong thickness on that section while trying to get the stain out, and sanded all the way through the engineered wood down to the plywood below, leaving a physical hole in the flooring. I was in the office at the time, he texted me to tell me this, but as a remedy suggested that he could fix it by staining the entire floor a darker colour which would hide the hole. I agreed he could try this to see if it worked.
When I got home that evening, he had stained the entire floor in half the flat a dark wood colour (which was fine in principle) but the hole in the floor was still showing, he’d painted against the grain in the plywood, it just generally looked obvious and awful. On top of this, for some reason he had used a roller to paint most of the floor, but then used a small paintbrush to complete the edges of the room up to the skirting board. This dried to be a totally different colour to the rest of the staining, and had clear and haphazard brush strokes all the way round the edges of the room. So basically I had a floor with a hole in it, and stained two or three different shades of this new colour. At that point I asked him just to stop working as he had basically ruined the entire floor, and to consider how he suggested making good the situation. He suggested that the issue was my fault and I should not have let him try to sand there, and that I should have been aware of the risks.
After a few weeks of not hearing anything after he left, I attempted to call to address getting the work fixed plus emailed and left VMs and heard nothing back. I then had some other things going on and needed the floor sorted for the Xmas period, so replaced the entire flat with a cheap laminate as a temporary measure (highly stressed with work and family things and he seemed to have gone totally awol).
this year - he reappeared and I managed to get hold of him a couple of months ago as my neighbour mentioned he was doing some work at her flat, and I asked if he had considered compensation etc for the work. On the phone he told me that he didn’t have insurance so couldn’t afford for me to take him to small claims (!) and could we fix the issue between us. Long story short, he came round and we had a chat about agreeing something where he would cut me a deal on materials, and do the labour for free. However, the subsequent quote he has sent over is essentially the cost of the work at full price, with a 30% reduction. I have responded to say this isn’t what we agreed in person and asked for a follow up, but have now heard nothing for 2 months.
question is - if I attempted to go down the legal route is this likely to be successful? The amount I’d be after is around £4500 to restore the engineered flooring to what is was. I am aware of the time that’s passed though, and while I have photos of the issues and communications where he’s admitted what he’s done, I have since put in temporary flooring as a temp solution. I also think he will argue that the work was done at risk, which I’m not convinced about, and lastly, I just feel bad for him. I don’t think he’s a bad person, just messed up and then is trying to deflect it back on me, added to which his imperfect English makes it more difficult to have a straightforward conversation about it. All our WhatsApps have disappeared as he had his settings on Disappearing 🙄 so there is obvs a lesson there for me about being stubborn on getting written comms on everything.
I know there is a time limit of 6 years to make a claim, but not am really ranging between not wanting the hassle and the stress, but then on the other hand just thinking that he did mess up and it’s not my fault he didn’t have the correct insurance.
WWYD?