Written estimate for small claims action

[Aeroadster]

Hi,

I've had a rogue trader walk away with a lot of money.

He was working on a building a new porch where nothing existed and had dug a narrow trench of approx. 4.5m in length, 30cm wide and 40cm deep. He had one person digging this for 6hours.

Before he went silent, he told me the cost of digging this hole was around £1000 of cost and that although only one person was involved he priced it up in his head that two people would have done this job for profit purposes. After I questioned it, he re-evaluated this and said it would cost £400 for the dig. Even though he didn't remove any soil from site or clear up etc.

I've had other tradesmen tell me this should not have cost £300, let alone £400, but none will put this on paper for me, despite me saying I would pay for the quote!!!!

The rogue trader has run with a lot more money and he has also claimed that spending 20minutes at the end of one day was worth £400 of his time and whilst Selco made a delivery.

Are there any tradesmen here who would be willing to provide me with an estimate for this work so I can present at as a comparable cost in a small claims action?

I live in North London, near High Barnet if that gives you an idea of local charge rates.

Please send me a message if you can help, even if you're not based in London but could provide a relative quote for me.

Many Thanks

 

[big-all]

heeelllooo Aeroadster

you agreed to his quote so others opinions are irellivent really
your argument seems to be over the waiting for a delivery??

has he done what he quoted for the money??
if not your only argument is for the cost to complete the agreed work

 

[Aeroadster]

The full SP is that I gave him £2000 up front to build a porch.

I lost my job and asked him to stop work after the first day.

He won't return any of the money, and insisted that even if he was going to be generous to me, he would only return £1000, as it costs that much to dig the foundations, and supply 3tonnes of sharp sand and several bags of cement.

Thing is, he never gave me a breakdown of the costs, but surely it cannot cost £1000 for one person to spend one day digging a narrow trench?

He told me this would be a one week job at least, and the easy bit was digging the trench.

So how can the easy bit of digging this trench and £160 of materials equate to £1000?

He's now disappeared and will not respond to me.

 

[big-all]

whilst you have my full sympathy
you have asked him to provide a service and provide a product
he has agreed and started
you are now asking to re-negotiating the contract from a very weak position in effect at his mercy
you are entitled to nothing other than agreed as is he
trying to breakdown what has or has not been done is irrelevant
unless you have a clause to allow termination early you are at his mercy
you must allow him to finnish or face the consequences
your best option is to negotiate and hope he understands
perhaps promising the rest when you can afford it will allow him to give you some breathing room but at his disgrection so be nice to him

 

[GeeTee]

Do you have any form of written contract with him?

Were there any terms and conditions provided along with a written quote? If so do they contain anything about cancellation after acceptance of the quote and or commencing work?

Not that a written contract has any more standing in a legal situation than a verbal one it is useful to avoid the he said she said situation.

What was the total quote for the porch construction?

I'm not in the building trade, but as with anything, working out the cost to dig a foundation trench is not as simple as "one bloke with a spade for 6 hours". If he is a professional builder running a business then there's liability insurance, staff overheads (holidays, sickness, NI etc.), transportation, dead time travelling around to look at and quote for work - which at best probably turns into actual paying work 1/3rd of the time and being able to payout enough to live on. (No doubt there is more than that to cover).

Personally I would advise against the court action, especially if you only have a verbal contract - at best you will obtain a judgement against him which will then cost more to enforce than you can hope to recover if he refuses to comply once you factor in costs (let alone time and grief), at worst you will find yourself found to be in breach of contract and the case dismissed.

Far better to keep it civil, explain the situation and find a compromise with the guy. Perhaps for the £2k already committed the porch can be brought up to DPC level and left such that it can be left and wait until you have sufficient funds to complete the thing. Leaving you to concentrate on your unfortunate predicament (I sympathise with that BTW having been made redundant a couple of times) rather than worrying about legal proceedings.

 

[RogerBoyle]

By all means take it to Court but you will lose as far as I'm concerned
The builder has done nothing wrong.

He gave you a price to complete the works , You agreed and now because of a change in your circumstances you have cancelled the works and want as much of the money back as possible..

I do sympathise and if I was the builder and you had approached me I would have taken some of the money and gave you some back Probably a 50/50 split.

After all he will have booked your job in to last X amount of time and may have materials and wages that have been ordered to pay for etc.

But from what you have posted on here and the way that you seem to have approached the builder then I would probably have told you to do one as well

 

[michaelbailey]

howmuch has the builder lost in fitting yoyr job in for example putting others off while doing yours

 

[rjm2k]

What was the total amount payable?

What did the quote say you got for the money?

Was it a fixed price or T&M?

 

[FiremanT]

What did the quote say you got for the money?

I think he's stopped listening/reading. Wrong answers I'm afraid