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.

There is literally only one sensible solution. Stay on good terms with the builder with a firm but fair approach. Do not go apoplectic and start making completely unachievable demands or he will walk off site. If he’s not a cowboy chances are it’s just taken longer than he thought. If he walks then it will take longer and cost more to get someone else in. Keep chivvying him but nicely.

In the meantime either make part of your home safe to live in- e.g one room with a mini kitchen and bed-sitter and bathroom and then live there, get an Airbnb on a credit card, or go abroad and stay with parents for a few weeks.

My parents' floating new floor was meant to take a weekend. Once the old floor came up and the loo disconnected (meant to be quick and easy) a new concrete subfloor had to be put in when we originally had thought just a ply underlayer. One of the workmen was ill. Another job they had overran. A spare part was missing for old loo. The original pipe had a bust isolation valve. The whole installation took two and a half weeks and every day they said it would be finished in two or three days. A fantastic job but tbh I now think a lot of young builders have no ability to judge how long anything will take or what contingency to allow for. Whereas inmhe my 75 year old builder could tell you the likelihood of job lasting two weeks not two days and pricing it accordingly...in which case one was always put off the job in the first place.

I think a lot of(technically) good builders nowadays are not businessmen and cannot price their time.

OP - I have just remembered that a friend of mine took an apartment on Mallorca when she had her baby. She moved out there for 6 months and her husband commented - this was long before WFH was a thing. She said it was the best decision she had ever made. With this in mind could you do similar? Or head abroad to your parents/inlaws for a bit?

@Tortephant that would make it hard for post partum midwife checks, baby weigh ins etc. Not to mention the wait for a passport for the as yet unborn child.

Ok so you need to prioritise. Do you have rooms which are finished? If not select which rooms need finishing and in which order then ask him exactly what needs doing and when it will be done, check in daily. Has he been paid in full? Does your contract have any penalty clauses?