Need help - builder not meeting any deadline. What options do we have?

[Lunasma]

Need help, ideally from someone who gets the construction industry. We are one week away from having a baby. Our house is still nowhere near finished, and every deadline our contractor assures is on is simply never, ever met. We were meant to finish early March with contingency. It's now early April and we still have walls not boarded, roof not fully tiled, walls not made good, bathroom not fit, flooring not fit. Plus our belongings are filthy with brick dust.
This has been becoming an issue for over a month. What can I do? We have tried

• Serious chats with him. He then fills us with confidence 'yes that should take X days' - and yet by the time that day comes around... the task isn't done. This has happened over and over.
• We've pretended the baby due date was 2 weeks prior. Didn't work. But it really is next week now. And we need to factor in a deep clean, and for them to leave temporarily whilst I recover.
• Threatened to get another company to finish the roof tilings and deduct it from him. He understood this. Promised it would be finished last Friday. It wasn't.

FYI the guy came highly recommended by multiple locals. his attention to detail is good. He's not a 'cowboy' in that sense. He's just lost control of his labourers.

I genuinely feel in despair about what to do if baby is due a week today. Do I go around tomorrow with a checklist of day-by-day tasks/ questions? Do I simply green light the roofing company to finish that bit? Do I sack this guy and start the process of finding another builder (hard in N.London) which will delay us further? We cannot move out - we can't afford that.

If anyone knows what do to, pls say.

I'm in the trade, don't think I've ever been on a site that has finished on schedule - see any episode of Grand Designs to watch it go over-budget and over run.

I'm on a new wing for a secondary school that we are due to complete Friday, we defiantly won't, not a hope.

Lots of things slow you down, unforeseen problems, supply shortages, sub contractors falling ill, getting injured or being shite, architects plans being wrong or impractical and having to be adjusted on site, building control not turning up to sign off a stage, weather etc etc...

If he's a good builder, even if he's slow stick with him, a slightly late well finished project is better than one not finished right because the guy has got peeved or you've fired him in hope someone else's promises come true.

I know new to be mums worry about their little bairns, but they are much hardier than you think, a bit of dust won't hurt them, well Asbestos dust might, but hopefully that's not present!

When my lad was a couple of months old I was mid way through re-tiling the roof, my wife went out and left him with me, what to do? abandon roof - nope I hoisted the little chap up onto the scaffolding and he spent the day up there with me happy as Larry, Mrs. DeftWasp wasn't best pleased it's fair to say, but he's survived to be a grumpy teenager!

Book an airbnb for a couple of weeks.

I'd venture part of the cause is that local authorities and public utilities engage in a rush to spend the budget in February and March. So tradespeople are inundated with allegedly urgent work.

I'm sorry, but no job ever finishes on time

Welcome any thoughts from anyone else who's been through this - please don't suggest moving out - as I already said - we absolutely cannot afford that. I'm on Maternity Allowance now and we have a North London mortgage to pay.,

Can you make plans to stay with your mum or MIL for a few days after the birth ?
There's nothing much that is going t9 change in a week. Obviously micro manage him if you can do so over the next week to get as much done as possible but clearly there amount of work left is quite substantial so you will have to make some other plans or put up with a baby in the building site. As PP said, baby won't care so much. Do you have a bedroom at least that you can hang out in ?

I know it's a stressful situation, but @DeftWasp post is accurate and honest. Unfortunately the vast majority of jobs overrun and there's usually very little that can be done to prevent it.

There is no way he will be finished anywhere near on time. Always make sure not to pay upfront and to hold back final payment until work is completed and indeed checked over to make sure it is correct and of a good standard.

Cleaning takes far longer than you would imagine because dust takes a long time to settle. So you might have to deep clean three, maybe four times. Industrial-strength vacuum with hepa filter bags is required.

Any belongings should be wrapped and sealed prior to work commencing. Storage is also an option.

All you can do with your contractor is to stay on their case. It's the squeaky wheel that gets the oil.

Contractors often switch between various jobs all on the go at the same time.

Sack them at your peril. That's usually a recipe for disaster. Instead just take a deep breath and know that it will take three times as long and cost twice as much.

Take a rental for the new baby arrival or move in with family if they have room.

Yeah I don't want to sack them, I just feel gaslit. It was meant to finish February, then we allowed him March. Then we had a big, serious chat and he said he was 3 weeks overdue. But we are at the end of that deadline and it still looks like there's - I don't know - 4 more weeks of work? Each week we get told 'this bedroom will be finished by Friday' and Friday rolls around and it's unfinished (crap example).

Both our parents are abroad so that's not an option. We have to live in this house. I'm terrified of bringing a newborn home with brick dust and plaster dust everywhere. Plus all our belongings piled up in rooms that should be clean and sanctuary. I think the core issue is his labourers are slow. Plus many of them have randomly disappeared and taken other work (apparently this happens a lot).

The house is not going to be ready in a week.

So you have two choices:-

a) Bring the baby back to the house in its current state
b) Find somewhere else to stay temporarily

I understand you have a North London mortgage and you’ve repeatedly said B is not an option, but honestly - what else can you do?

If you really do not have the money for option B, I would personally take out a small loan to cover a couple weeks accommodation. I wouldn’t bring a new born baby back to a dust filled house with a half finished bathroom and contractors on site. My renovation (also in London) over-ran by several weeks. We had to stay in an Air BnB with two young DC which was obviously not ideal but unfortunately as a PP mentioned, deadlines for this kind of work rarely mean anything.

Micro managing a skilled and competent builder is not going to end well.

If you want them to complete the work, take a deep breath, accept you can’t ‘nest’ in the way your instincts want, and go with it.

Are there ANY rooms in your house that are habitable and not part of the building project?

Exactly this - and if not, could one room be prioritised for the next few days to make it so?

Is this the first renovation project you’ve undertaken?

Is it a whole home renovation?

What does your contract with your building contractor say? What were your payment terms? Are you paying him in tranches?

You will just have to
Find a safe clean place where you can bring your newborn.
Friends family travelodge caravan in the lee valley and yes pay for it.
Presumably you have contingency ££ in your reno build budget? Use it.

Why arent you getting proper maternity pay?

Anyway at this point you and baby are more important for you to stress over than reno which your dp or dh can look after?
Make an alternative plan and put it on a credit card

I think that @DeftWasp has explained is correct.

There could be any number of reasons responsible for the work being behind schedule. My advice would be to make as much as you can habitable and let the builder get on with the job.

A full house renovation is never done on time. There are always delays outside the builder’s control. I don’t think builders are very good at estimating the time it takes. Their skills lie in doing the work, not project management.

I used to run construction projects. Very large ones. Housing estates, hospitals, airports, etc.

I just did a house renovation too and the builder told me six weeks. I laughed to myself because I knew the scope of the work and the different subs and suppliers meant I was looking at around 6 months not 6 weeks.

Guess how long it took? 6.5 months. I didn’t say anything until 4 months in when I made a joke about his 6 week schedule. This builder was fantastic, a master craftsman. Everything was done top quality and that takes time.

I think you were a bit naive going into this and they’re really not that much over schedule yet.

I have just project managed our whole home reno, which finished on time. Largely because our building contractor gave a very, very conservative time estimate.

I had a contractor start work in early December which he said would take three weeks. Little did I realise that this did not mean three sequential weeks. He finished mid-March! As his work was very good, I didn't pressure him as I accepted it would be done eventually and to a high standard.

I am sorry to hear this is just be stressful. But I am
not sure what you want here. You can either move out or stay put and ask them to come back in a couple of weeks. Both will have financial penalties as it’s unlikely he has a job to do in between and you don’t want them starting another and then yours slowing down further. I would really try and find the funds to move out. But carefully manage the builder when gone. They may be even quicker if you are all not there. Can you visit your parents ?

I used to flip properties and deadlines are always doubled (as is the budget). I did have a team that worked over a weekend to pull out all the stops as I was moving in but usually they are just crap at estimating the amount of time things take. As long as he is showing up and doing a full days work (not nipping off to ‘the merchants’ for three hours in the middle of the day) then stick with him. Threats etc don’t work unless you actually follow through, and so far you haven’t so he knows they mean nothing.

Right you need to look at what you DO have and where you can hole up safely with a 'bedroom' for you preferably with a bathroom close by then MAKE him get that area as clean and safe as possible for you and baby then use some acres of plastic sheeting to seal that off as well as possible from the utter chaos. Get your Blitz spirit head on and see this as a challenge or adventure and do your best. It WILL be over soon and this will be a funny anecdote eventually at the christening/18th depending on how long this actually takes.

If you lived near me you'd have lots of nice caravan parks that are cheap and clean but I presume with a London mortgage this isn't possible and you don't have friends with acres of space to hole you up in either. It really sucks but you can weather this and you will find reserves within you I promise. Good luck.

💐 This too shall pass.

Do not sack him - hang on and get the work done and snag it well sp its "done done".

Talk to local EAs - see if they can often help with temp accommodation and it'll be near yours.
This will likely be cheaper than airbnb

I get its a total bag of dicks and the mrotgage + mat leave is terrifying but honestly if you can find 50-100k gor major building work you can find 4k for temp rental.
Yes you may need to go back when the baby is 10 or 11 months but we are all making sub optimal choices in this climate.
(I'm paying just under 8k per month for mortgage and childcare ONLY right now so I get it)

Surely this is in your contract? I'm was an operations manager for a construction firm and all our contracts specify what happens if things overrun, from financial penalties to accommodating clients in hotels. We don't often work on houses with occupiers though, it's a health and safety nightmare. A full return is what £150 to £200k depending on spec with a 20 pc contingency ? So there should be money to rent an air BnB until it's finished

Why is a ' North London Mortgage' any different to anyone else's mortgage?

You have budgeted for your renovation and for your baby, both will included contingency, so use it now when you need it.

If you sack your builder it's going to cost a lot more financially, if somebody is prepared to take on another's work, and then you will get caught in the lack of accountability grey area for anything that isn't satisfactory. Keep your builder and move out if you really need to.