Hi, I wonder if anyone could help or advise - The builder that did work on our bathroom and kitchen wrecked our house!!! He broke our bath, broke our shower tray, cut the shower doors too high and didn’t seal the shower causing the shower to leak everywhere. He levelled the bathroom floor completely wrong and uneven and cut the bath panel wrongly. The tiles we bought were very expensive and he wrecked about 60% of them by cutting them with the wrong equipment. The electric work he did for us was so shoddy and dangerous - The list is endless. Breaking the bath was the last straw (goodness knows how he did it!) but we said we wasn’t happy with his work and he picked up his tools and just left with the job unfinished. He then emailed us an invoice and we said we would only pay for the actual work he did minus breakages. We agreed upon a figure and paid him upon advice from citizens advice.
We have had numerous huge leaks from the bathroom since he did the work and these leaks have been because of the work he did - the latest leak was a few weeks ago and because of this latest leak we now have to have our bathroom and kitchen and also the kitchen ceiling completely re-done (again!) and will cost us thousands of pounds.
A few days ago on social media on a local group there was somebody asking for recommendations for a bathroom fitter. His family member recommended his company and gave a glowing reference (??!!) I commented saying that I absolutely could not recommend this company because they wrecked my house and cost us thousands in repairs. A few hours later the builder guy messaged in a very threatening manner saying that what I said was slander and if I didn’t remove my comments he would speak to a solicitor to sue me. I probably shouldn’t have done but I messaged back saying that what I commented was not slander as it was all completely true and I asked him not to threaten me. He said it was slander as the company that did my work no longer exists as he closed it down and the new company (that his sister recommended on social media) was a different company with a different name and company house - (the new company has a very, very slightly different name) It is basically the same company with him as the sole worker but he closed down the first company I think because of the many bad reviews left on the website (none of which was me)
Anyway….if you are still reading (and thank you for your patience!) My question is - Is this true what he said? Is this slander? And can I get into trouble because of it? I wouldn’t have said anything negative (although true!) if I knew he was now under a different company name but the change in company name was so slight I didn’t notice - it was still him that did our work regardless of the change of name of the company and he was still responsible for thousands of pounds worth of damage.