Lawyer urgently needed - cowboy builders and defective extension

[cantaloupey]

We've had a horrible experience with cowboy builders and a defective extension which is going to have to be rebuilt. Huge amount of money lost.

Can anyone recommend a specialist lawyer? We know we may not get our money back but we want to look into our options even if our only recourse is complaining to trading standards.

I’m sorry Op, you are not alone, it happened to us too. If you have legal cover on your house insurance it may be worth a call.

Name changed as this may be identifying!

We've had a similar experience, OP. We haven't had to rebuild our extension (yet) but we've had to pay thousands of pounds to other tradesmen to put right their shoddy/illegal workmanship. Another problem has come to light recently: they appear not to have insulated it, so it's almost unusable in cold weather. There have also been multiple problems with the plumbing, and at least one is still ongoing, more than a year after the project was "finished".

We looked into small claims, but apparently you need at least £100K to spare as the builder is likely to declare themselves bankrupt, leaving the claimant to pay court costs. Strangely enough, our builders did declare themselves bankrupt but are now trading under a new name!

As per @fridaynight1 , first port of call is your insurance company. Then as per @BillTheBuilder , research the company/directors history to see if they have gone bankrupt before, could save you some money.

What are the defects on the extension? Serious stuff should be picked up by the building control during the build.

Unfortunately no cover from our building or legal insurance.

The builder has a whole string of insolvent companies. Not sure how that helps me though other than it indicating that he will likely go insolvent again? Amount of money is too big for small claims which would mean proper court but no point if he then just goes insolvent.

Building control didn't pick up anything during the build but haven't completed all of their inspections yet. Some of the faults which contravene building regs were definitely present on some of their visits but I guess they checked different things.

So sorry to hear this. This seems to be amazingly common but builders get away with it time and time again. Its crazy when other industries are tightly regulated and when such large amounts of money are stake. We had a standard contract but its not worth the paper its written on when builders can just go insolvent. I don't understand why the government doesn't do more.

I'm worried that we will discover more faults. I think its inevitable that we will. Unfortunately I trusted the builder. I feel such an idiot. The amount of money lost is devastating.

@cantaloupey
Which county are you In Herts and have had a near miss with cowboy who goes from town to town in this area and has serval court injunction s against his name

We are not in Herts so must be a different builder. How do you find out if there has been a Court injunction? I've not seen anything bad online about them except for the string of insolvent companies on Companies House.

What are the defects?

What county are you in, OP? Just wondering if we had the same builder!

@BillTheBuilder I suspect its a different builder. While things are on going, I don't want to say anything that is identifying but happy to PM you.

@HeBeaverandSheBeaver While we are not in Herts there could be a link. Can I PM you?

Of
Course

You hired a “cowboy builder” aka someone who was not licensed or bonded to work on your home?
My apologies - I had to google cowboy builder as I’ve never heard that term.
Have you seen these builders since they did the work?
Are they still in town or have they moved on?
This sort of sounds like you’re the victim of a scam — the scam being “hey pay us big money to build onto your house but haha we aren’t carpenters.”

If the OP won’t spill the beans on the defects, the stage of the build, or who told her the extension needed to be rebuilt, we will never know.
Building Control will check the foundations are deep enough, the over site is done properly, the walls and lintels are built correctly, the roof is constructed correctly. That’s the bare bones of the extension and passing those checks should result in a reasonably sound structure.

You need a civil litigation solicitor and you need to try and get to the builders insurance company. Did you agree anything re insurance - they should've been asked to insure the works.

What is bonded or licensed? Builders don't have to be licensed in the UK.

@kirinm Thanks I will look for a civil litigation lawyer. According to the contract they have insurance but I've not seen a copy of the insurance policy and I hope they genuinely do have insurance.

Here:

www.embroker.com/blog

My apologies - this is the incorrect information.

These are reasons for a license, such as for building construction, electrical contractor, or plumbing contractor, for example.

These are reasons to hire someone who is bonded:

This is why contractors are insured - it protects both the customer in case the contractor fails to provide the necessary services and the contractor in case the customer fails to pay.

We don't have states in the UK. I can only assume you are us or elsewhere. This is primarily a UK site. Totally different legal systems.

Yes unfortunately in the UK anyone can call themselves a builder and then just go insolvent when things go wrong to avoid any liability. And if they don't go insolvent you are then facing absolutely huge court fees to bring them to account.

@HellsBalls I didn't say that the extension needs to be rebuilt, I think you may be confusing my post with someone else's. That said the roof will need to be redone, and possibly come off completely. There are some other structural issues and a large number of non-structural problems. Works are theoretically about 95% complete but much will need redoing. I don't want to say much more as its too identifying and there are good reasons not to want to share more publicly at this stage. I'm happy to PM you with more details If you think you might be able to help. thanks