Am I right to be furious about this?

[BriceNobeslovesMurielHeslop]

Hi all,
I’m a newish house owner, in that I bought a little house with a garden last year after owning a flat for a while. Obviously owning a house comes with a few extra repairs and things so I just wanted to probe the Mumsnet hive mind before hitting the roof.
My house is a bit of a cosmetic fixer upper, nothing very big but does need some bits a pieces done. One of these things is that there isn’t a Ramsey ladder into the loft yet (I promise that becomes relevant later).
Back at the end of January there was a huge storm where I live, so much so that we were issued a “stay at home” style warning. One of these glass panes from the little loft window blew out, I didn’t know until the next morning, when my neighbour saw it from the bottom of his garden.
My insurance company instructed me that they didn’t have enough emergency glaziers to meet demand after the storm, and to organise someone independently. I phoned an emergency glazier, who quoted me £320 to board the window. Ok, that’s steep, but I was so worried about water ingress (and also squirrels getting into the loft) that I agreed. They took my bank details on the day, and a man attended the next day. He was in and out in 20mins top, and left without reporting any concerns.
A few days later £390 left my account - apparently VAT wasn’t included. Ok, I didn’t ask, lesson learned.
This weekend I had another glazier come and give me a quote for a repair. He went up into the loft, and when he came down stated he was shocked that the first company would charge me so much, and that there is a three inch gap at the bottom of the board, where it’s just been left to the elements.
I’m pretty upset. The new glazier says they should have used plastic from the outside the seal the hole, that it’s just a bad job, and in his opinion I should be refunded for the whole job. The original glaziers have refuted all responsibility stating
a) I’ve left it too late to raise any objection (well, how could I know. I also suspect it’s easier to do a shoddy job when you know somebody can’t see what you’ve done) and
b) they just “made it safe” (no, they didn’t. The hole is too small for anybody to crawl through, plus it’s right up on the roof. The man concern would be water ingress, and they’ve failed to stop that).

Sorry this is so long, I’m so sure the original glaziers is in the wrong but am not really sure how to proceed. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Well, you bought a house with a loft with a window in it - so it seems a bit feeble to ‘not like going in the loft’! You would have spent considerable less than £400 getting a stepladder, a sheet of plastic and some duct tape and sealing the window yourself until you could have got it repaired. Welcome to home ownership

"You don't need one, I have never owned/lived in a house or known anyone with a house with a loft ladder... they're not really a common thing."
They are in fact very very common.

@Discombobble Actually I can answer that one- my dad did go up the day afterwards, when we found out the damage had been done, and tried to seal it with plastic. The
surrounding wood was too wet at the time and any tape couldn’t get a purchase. TBH I thought it was the better thing to do to get a glazier, since they would do a “proper job”. That’s definitely a lesson learned.

@PrivacyScreen Quite- I’ve never lived in a house with a loft (apart from in the 80s maybe) that didn’t have a pre-fitted loft ladder.

I'm another who's in the "not like going in the loft" camp. Fortunately I have a partner, so I send him up... but if I didn't I'd have happily paid 400 not to go up myself! Doesn't mean I should expect shoddy workmanship though.

I can't imagine as a single "not liking going in the loft" person disregarding houses with a window in the loft either 🤷‍♀️.

I think it’s a bit performative tbh- I can’t plumb toilets or fix boilers either, and yet my house has both of them.
The fact is I paid for a job and it’s a badly done job - if other posters takes umbrage because they think I should have done it myself that’s their perogative, but I don’t agree. People pay for lots of jobs they can technically do themselves.

Hang on... you can't plumb in a toilet? I take it all back... you're most certainly a mumsnet damsel 🙄🤣🤣

Some of these posts are ridiculous. Why would OP need to be able to go up the loft? I’ve been in my current house for 3 years and never been up there.
What’s next? I should be able to clean the gutters/ check the roof in person?

I think you will have to put this down to experience
Cant see much chance of you getting the money back

The job was done this year. Why does it matter if the issue wasn’t identified until now? You are well within time to bring a claim against them if the work was poor - issue small claims but get someone to take plenty of photos. They will refund quickly then. Why posters are aligning with the first glazing company and calling you a damsel in distress is because they are missing the fucking point!

Absolutely it's performative. I got dragged around just for pointing out they hadn't read the OP properly before attacking you. 😂 I lived in a massive Victorian house once where the attic entrance was above the first part of the sweeping staircase (which was split in two) and it was about 16 feet up to the loft entrance. There was a loft window and like hell did we know what state it was in from one year to the next. I have a roof window now and I can't get to see if it's been cleaned by the window cleaner or not (he charges me for it but I'm not convinced he actually cleans it).

Even if you didn't have ceilings that high, the idea that you could just stand on a flimsy bookcase and hope for the best is one of many avoidable reasons why A+E is so full.

It has just occurred to me if I had a house like that Victorian one again, I'd maybe buy a drone to check the roof.

These threads responses prove otherwise.

I don't have a loft ladder, but I do have a ladder.

OP, owning a house is an exercise in learning how not to get ripped off. It's a steep learning curve.

But you paid the bill without checking that the work had been properly completed?
Chalk this one up to experience and don't make that mistake again. In my experience, most tradesmen will shortcut if they can get away with it.

As I’ve mentioned previously in the thread, they took my bank details prior to the work being done, and then took the money out afterwards. It was part of the terms of someone attending, and I was a bit panicked and upset so just said yes. At least I know never to agree to that again.

How does someone take money from your account without you sending it?

Beats me, but that’s definitely what happened. They took my bank details when I phoned on the Saturday, and £390 was out of my account at the start of the following week. They might have taken my CVC and then used that to authorise the transaction- like I said I was a bit panicked and unsure of a “normal” transaction in that respect.

Some MNers are arseholes, they just like being "right" and have a go at people to make them feel better about their own shitty little lives.

You're in the right OP. Not checking a tradesperson's work doesn't make it ok for them to have done a bad job. I don't think for a second that they'd have refunded you if you'd levitated yourself up the loft ladder and complained 5 minutes after they'd left. Rip-off merchants who do a bad job aren't famed for their customer service skills.

You should definitely pursue this through the small claims court. I'm sorry that you've got this to deal with on top of the storm damage.

They sound dodgy as fuck. I'd be more concerned that they have your bank card details.

The amount of cowboy builders is shocking. My DH is a builder and does roofing sometimes. He says the amount of shoddy, rip-off jobs people do on roofs is shocking - he will sometimes go to rectify them. It's probably because clients can't get up to see and don't know what they are doing.

Anyway, OP, I don't think it's odd that you didn't go into the loft at all. But you are here now. You either take him to the small claims court - if you go on the citizens advice bureau website as they go through the process. Or you chalk it up to a bad experience and move on. I don't think its worth contacting your insurers. You asked the builders to do the work so you have the contract with them. You'd need to sue them to get your money back.

Why didn’t you have a look from outside once the initial repair had been done if getting into the loft was too difficult?

The amount of cowboy builders is shocking. My DH is a builder and does roofing sometimes. He says the amount of shoddy, rip-off jobs people do on roofs is shocking - he will sometimes go to rectify them. It's probably because clients can't get up to see and don't know what they are doing.

A friend of mine is a builder. Trading Standards regularly contact him when a customer has contacted TS when they've been scammed. He goes out to assess what needs to be rectified for small claims/Trading Standards records etc as a trusted expert. He asked the TS woman what trade had the most complaints. She said roofers, without a doubt. It's your typical 'iceberg trade' where on the surface it looks fine, but you've got no idea what they've done underneath.

Did you complete the claim for the repair, under your insurance policy? As your insurers told you to souce your own repair, they should have reimbursed you so you shouldn't have ended up out of pocket.

I would ring bank and ask for money to be put in dispute. Might not work. But you’ve just found out you pad for work that was not performed to the expected standard. And I’d write a much more strongly worded email demanded money back and threatening trading standards. I’d go to trading standards in any event.

I did, it’s on the top of a pitched roof about 23 feet off the ground- you can only see it from the end of my (fairly long) garden. It’s a pretty limited view from where you can see the window, and nothing looks unusual from that point.

I asked this but not sure if you missed it or have already answered. Why has the insurance not paid out if they told you to get your own repair. I work in insurance and this is normal practice and you just submit the receipt and are reimbursed?

Standing on furniture to get int a loft? That is incredibly dangerous. A friend of mine, very fit and strong, even using ladders to get into a loft, ended up in hospital- he slipped, fell on his neck and shoulder, nearly died, and it took about 14 months for the nerves to regrow down his arm again enough to hold things without dropping them. If there isn't a proper loft ladder, you need a proper commercial type a-frame or straight ladder that gets you high enough that you don't have to pull yourself up into the loft, and if you use a straight ladder it needs to be properly 'footed' so it can't slip.
Plenty of people are not good on ladders, and are therefore better getting someone in to do that sort of thing. Courses on 'working at height' get done for a reason- to stop serious accidents. And 'height' is surprisingly low- you can do yourself a lot of damage from just a couple of feet up.