Problems with builder

[dormermike]

Hi

Had a dormer bedroom converted into two bedrooms and used a loft conversion company.

Long story short they have caused a structural fault with the roof as well as substandard work as confirmed by a structural engineer.

I also have a list of snag items which are yet to be resolved.

Essentially this was a 19foot stud wall with two internal doors and two additional skylights which started in November and is still not complete.

What is the correct procedure from here please? I have given them several opportunities to remedy the issue but they are now not answering emails and calls.

Should I contact my home insurance legal cover for advice?

Thanks
Mike

 

[Mikefromlondon]

Have you paid them all the money? if not retain substantial part of it and email or write to them that you would get another loft company or a some other reputable builders to get the job completed as well as get the new company to put those structural defects right at their expense, and deduct the charges or if there isn't enough funds left then you will send them a bill and go to court for a claim, wait for their response, if you do not get satisfactory response within say 14 days, you will then have to get someone to finish it off and make a claim, also report them as incapable builders with your local trading standards, if they have a website, leave appropriate comments so that other potential customers can be wary of their standard of competence.

 

[endecotp]

Should I contact my home insurance legal cover for advice?

That will be more useful than random people on the Internet

Or it might not. Who knows. But if you have that cover you might as well try and see what they say.

 

[^woody^]

Random reply.

You need to give them an opportuinity to put the work right, or settle any grievance that you have.

Send them a final letter requiring them to agree a remedy within the next 10 days, else state that you will instruct others and seek reimbursment of your costs.

If there is a dispute about quality or technical issue, then you should consider getting an expert report to help you with any future claim. This expert should be independant and impartial and be able to support his opinions by reference to appropriate relevant standanrds.

Be wary of reporting "incapable" builders or leaving other negative comments somewhere, if its just your opinion and not supported by facts

 

[dormermike]

Thank you all. Very helpful comments and sounds like I'm on the right track.

Thanks

 

[dormermike]

By the way the council building control inspected this job twice, didn't register the fact the work is structural or ask any questions of the builders regarding calculations etc.

I'm taking it up with the BCO anyway as I thought ensuring that the structural side of the work is taken care of properly is in their remit. Is it, or do they literally just pop their heads in for a chat about wall colours and insulation depth because that's all ours did.

Thanks

 

[^woody^]

Building control are not there to look after the applicants interests, and bizarrely, have no liability to applicants either.

 

[dormermike]

Building control are not there to look after the applicants interests, and bizarrely, have no liability to applicants either.

Wow didn't know that. Just a cash grab for councils then or do they serve some other purpose?

 

[John D v2.0]

They are there to hopefully keep the standards of building work up, hopefully better then nothing even if they're not perfect.

 

[m0t]

If your home legal cover is like mine (more than) then it doesn't count as a claim if you call them up for advice, only if they are required to act for you. When I had issues with my window fitters they provided all the template documents and review them as part of the cover without registering a claim.

In summary you have to write to them setting out the basic facts of your grievance - so date contract entered into, date work commenced, date work 'finished', reference to the consumer rights act, list all of the individual snagging items and what you want done and a date by which they have to respond (usually 14 days but my home insurance said I could use 7 if urgent), My home legal cover also said that in a scenario where they were not playing ball, and there was a structural issue that needed urgently rectifying, you could have the work corrected by another company then add it to the cost of the claim you made against the original builder. To do this you would have to show provide quotes to prove you hadn't chosen a gold plated solution and something from an expert to say the problem was serious enough to require urgent action.

 

[motorbiking]

Do you have a view of the cost to fix yet?
If you are going to take legal action you should do a search on the company and directors to see if they have any outstanding judgements.
If the cost to fix is under £10k then the process is lot simpler and will cost you roughly 10% of the claim amount (though its banded) over 10k and its high court job

 

[Ian H]

I'm taking it up with the BCO anyway as I thought ensuring that the structural side of the work is taken care of properly is in their remit. Is it, or do they literally just pop their heads in for a chat about wall colours and insulation depth because that's all ours did.

Thanks

Our BCO wants stool and semen samples from the Author of the structural calculations.

 

[dormermike]

So the SE when he visited told me about two things that need fixing. I now have the final report after it was with the loft company as a draft version apparently so they could "comment but not edit". Reason it went to loft company first was because they are paying the bill but have been assured that SE's are impartial and objective.

Now that I have the report one of the items has been watered down a lot and is no longer a requirement to to be fixed. I called the SE to question this and was told it does not adhere to "best practice " but its all subjective and would take an awful lot of work to put right anyway.

So, exactly how impartial can I expect this advice to be, considering the loft company paid the bill?

If the advise is to pay for my own report then so be it.

Thanks !

 

[dormermike]

Am I being naive to expect an SE report to be impartial and objective regardless of who pays for it?

 

[Ian H]

No, they wouldn't put their name and reputation onto a dodgy report.