Any legal advice would be very welcome please as I am sick with worry.
- We bought a house 10 years ago with the intention of developing it. It was a 2,700 sq foot farmhouse on 30 acres
- We had a builder in mind whose work we had seen and had been vouched for (although we were cautioned he was expensive and had a reputation for being difficult)
- He even joined us on the first viewing and so has been on the journey with us until we secured planning and funds to develop the house, so a trust had been built up over time
- Our intention was to renovate the house with reclaimed materials, removing some elevations and replace them with others
- This would increase the size of the house to approx 4,000 square feet and we were told to budget £700K for a 9-12 month build.
- We discussed contracts and the builder said it would be more economical for us to work on a time and materials basis without a contract (I know in hindsight, it was massively foolish to be so trusting)
- Fast forward and we have now spent £1.2m and the house remains with few windows, no boiler, radiators, structural work outstanding and drainage to complete, no bathrooms, flooring (no screen in half the ground floor yet, no kitchen etc. Roof is on and nearly complete and most of the first floor windows are in.
- This has led to a number of confrontations and their claim that the house is actually 5500 square feet (it definitely is not) and that this is way bigger than originally planned.
- We have asked repeatedly for months for a figure to completion and they still won’t respond. We have paid £180K in invoices in the last 8 weeks alone.
- My family have now lived in a caravan on-site for 18 months. I am trying to get a 2nd mortgage and will likely fail as the house is not habitable. I have had to cash in my pension early (still 5 years from retirement) just to keep us afloat.
- I would stress that the house is good quality (reclaimed bricks, handmade roof tiles, etc) but there are no second fix fittings anywhere yet, so this is not where the cost has gone. It has gone on building materials and labour.
- They have shyed away from giving us estimates even when pressed to do so for months. As an example, they indicated on a spreadsheet £8K to put up weatherboarding on several elevations. So far, they have charged £15K and it is not complete.
- I am between a rock and a hard place. I need to keep paying to get the house complete so I can get my family out of a caravan but it is crippling my future and I will likely have to sell the house at the end of the build and, I suspect, will have made no money from the ordeal and make have to take a big loss. He is threatening to walk every time I question their budgeting (and the confrontations are getting increasingly heated).
I wonder whether it is too late to appoint a Quantity Surveyor to go over their past invoices and determine whether I have had fair value. It certainly does not seem like I have. So far, we’ve paid the equivalent (including VAT) of over £3,100 per square metre on a renovation of a house which is far from complete. Do I have any right to take legal action given the absence of a contract? Could I retrospectively get a time and materials contract signed so I have some recourse?
I understand that there will be many who will find it difficult to sympathise with my plight given the sums involved and my naivety (“a fool and his money” etc…..). I accept this criticism entirely but I hope you’ll be kind and offer constructive criticism that can help my family and I carve a way forward.
Thanks for your consideration