We got a contractor in nearly a month ago to replace our back fence, there was actually a lot more garden work including laying a patio that needed doing. He offered a reasonable price to do the rest of the work (it wasn’t a cheap price, we wanted a quality job) it is a large garden and it did make sense to get the work done in one hit as we wanted the lawn levelling and it was easier to do whilst the fence was down.
Since then he has been totally unreliable, several parts of the work have had to be redone, we are still far from happy with the quality and we are nowhere near the work being finished. One of his men told us that the boss doesn’t even get out of bed till 10am! He has shown no respect for our property and damaged several items.
We have only released the money in stages and for materials as needed. We are in a position to sack him and recover the balance via small claims.
I have dealt with many tradespeople in the past, including managing two huge house renovations which were nowhere near as bad as this. I have never had to ask a trade to go without the work being completed, he was personally recommended to us by our occasional gardener who has worked for us for over two years so we had no reason to think it would turn out like this.
If you have had a similar experience did you continue with the contractor or find someone else to complete the job? Thanks for any thoughts, it’s difficult to decide whether to cut our losses at this point.