Dispute with builder, advice please

[kilogi]

We are having a horrible time with the builder who did work in our garden.

We agreed on landscaping work for our tiny back garden, including new paving, artificial lawn. The quality of the work can only be described with the word dismal. I had several other building companies and landscapers to come and assess the work, and they all wondered how such a simple job can be done so poorly, with uneven paving in every part, no attention to details. Worst of all, there was no planning for drainage , which poses significant risks of damp to the house in the future. We will have to rip everything apart and redo the whole thing again.

Now we are going through the process of asking for compensation from him, as he refused to redo the job. Would appreciate any advice if anyone has had any similar experience. Thanks a lot in advance.

Have you paid him? You can reasonably try to recover the amount it costs you to get it put right so get written quotes for that and ask the people quoting to detail what needs doing on their quotes. Get more than one. You can then write a Letter Before Action to the builder advising that unless he pays you £x/refunds £x of what you've paid so you can put things right, you'll take legal action. Don't ask for compensation, you want enough to fix things and you need to state that he refused on x date to put things right himself.

Set a deadline to hear from him and then make a small claims court application. Keep an eye on where he's advertising and any professional bodies he states he's a member as you may find he disappears. If he has a limited company, his accounts should be on the Companies House website. If he is a conman rather than just useless, I'm afraid you may not get anything out of him whatever you do, but if you win a small claim and he doesn't pay you you can get a ccj against him. Alternatively, if the amount he'll need to pay you in £750 or more, you can issue a statutory demand. If he doesn't pay up you apply for a winding up order for his company or get the Official Receiver involved and have him declared bankrupt.

All of these things cost money so if you haven't actually paid him in full, just use the money saved to pay someone else to put it right and cut your losses.

Do you have a contract or agreed specification?

Not quite the same, but we had someone do some roof repairs and they clearly didn't know what they were doing.

After the guy ignored me for a few weeks, I put a very short note on a local Facebook group enquiring about taking a tradesperson to small claims (but not mentioning the firm by name). An envelope appeared through my letterbox about an hour later containing the full labour cost in cash.

Small claims is easy and inexpensive, but I would try to exhaust other avenues first. Don't bad mouth them on social media obviously -- you may need to drop a few hints though.

Thanks all for the reply. Unfortunately we didn't have any contract.
@Wowfudge, thanks for the detailed advice. We are now at the stage that he has refused to put things right himself. So unfortunately we have to go down the small claim court route. Any more advice here would be greatly appreciated!

You can find info on how to word a letter before action online - CAB probably have something online. If there was no written contract (typically a written contract would state what the complaints procedure was, etc) you still had a verbal contract in which it was agreed the builder would do X work for £Y. As he was advertising he did this kind of thing (he did, didn't he?) it was entirely reasonable of you to expect him to carry out the work to a satisfactory standard and one better than you as DIYers could have achieved.