@simeon1964 - the first question you ask is as follows: "Expert Report:1 Are you saying that a client should accept an incidental cost of £3000.00 unaware, after a signed agreement between both parties when the client is operating on a fixed budget and had not been forewarned by the contractor despite being privy to all the drawings of the work prior to starting." That goes to the heart of a question I have asked you several times and which you continually evade answering. What work did your builder actually agree to carry out in respect of Project 1? Did it include piling or did it only specify underpinning? This is important because the expert appears to be telling the court that they are two entirely different disciplines and that a builder who is competent to underpin might not be competent to pile. If the contract for Project 1 was based on your structural engineer's report, did it specifically say that piling might be required? Because if your engineer did not foresee that piling would be necessary, I don't see why your builder should have done. I fear either that you might be trying to blame your builder for an additional expense that nobody (including you and your structural engineer) could have foreseen, or that you are trying to blame your builder for something your structural engineer ought to have alerted you to. I asked you back in #385 if we could see Exhibit 2 from your WS which is the contract for Project 1. I want to see what it says in respect of underpinning and/or piling. If it only talks about underpinning I don't see how (on the basis of what you've told us) the builder can be responsible for your expenditure on piling.

Glad you've found a solution to your satisfaction. I'm not a lawyer (and I'm not giving you legal advice) but I'd have thought that if the same problem comes back again, then you'd be entitled to reject it as they would already have had an opportunity to rectify it and they had failed. If it's the same problem, then the one attempt they are allowed didn't work. (But wait and see what others say. Don't just rely on me as you've spent a lot of money on this purchase.) IIRC you had notified the original dealer of the problem when you took delivery of the car, plus the second dealer in Newcastle has kindly provided you with an email confirming that the fault must have been present at purchase. Those two points are both in your favour. However: (1) as I understand it, after 6 months you might only get a partial refund. I believe the original dealer will be entitled to deduct from the full refund an amount to reflect the use you have had from the car between taking delivery and you rejecting it. How that amount might be determined in respect of a £170,000 supercar, I don't know. But I suppose it might be quite a large sum. (I simply don't know). (2) I believe you said you'd acquired the car on some sort of PCP deal or similar. Whether that affects your consumer rights as I've outlined above, I simply don't know. From a consumer protection point of view the law sometimes treats outright purchases differently from things like HP and lease deals. (3) As I've posted previously, I think a £170,000 purchase is a lot of money to rely just on answers from an online forum. [Edit: One other note of caution. I'm assuming that the fault - getting your 'phone to connect to the car via Bluetooth? - would be considered a sufficiently serious fault to justify rejection if it came to it. Again I don't know. Anyway - hope the car stays good and you don't need to consider anything other than enjoying it!]

What exactly have Barclays done wrong here to justify a complaint? Isn't it clear from the OP that he attempted a chargeback (or similar) which the trader (MS) has challenged and the bank has reversed the chargeback? The chargeback process is an extra-statutory one and relies on the T&Cs agreed between the card providers. Cardholders can benefit from it but they have no rights over how it is implemented, apart from the chargeback T&Cs. AIUI one of those T&Cs is that a chargeback will be reversed if the trader challenges it, and, in addition, the cardholder has only one bite at the chargeback cherry - they can't have another go. The rules on chargebacks are written by the card providers and they stick to them. I don't see what the OP can complain to their bank about. Surely all the OP needs to focus on -and to tell MS - is that they are enforcing their statutory consumer right to a refund under s34(5)(a) of The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 (legislation.gov.uk) I don't understand what other legal right to a refund the OP would have, so shouldn't he quote that to MS as part of his claim for the refund? Or is he claiming a refund on some other basis not explained? [NB - The above is based on the following assumptions: 1. The OP didn't raise a s75 claim against Barclays. I assume that if they had done they would have said so. 2. That the OP cancelled the order under the regulations linked to above, and clearly told MS within 14 days of his receipt of the laptop that he was exercising his right to cancel on that basis. I suspect many people fail to do this but it is a requirement of enforcing your right to cancel 3. The OP has proof that they actually sent the laptop back to MS]

Are you saying your builder carried out work he was neither qualified nor permitted to do, against building regulations? Did you specifically include these points in your witness statement or in the instructions to the expert? If you didn't, how would he know to take these into account? If you did specifically mention them but he didn't address them, then that is a question for the expert - as bazza pointed out That's all I have to say over Christmas. Merry Christmas everybody...

Ok simeon - it's very late so I'll try to explain as simply as I can what's worrying me about the difference between piling and underpinning Your post #378 doesn't make sense to me. The expert report makes it quite clear that "Underpinning and piling are totally different disciplines." That's the expert saying that - not me. If you think that underpinning and piling are the same thing, then you need to ask the expert why he thinks they are different. The expert says "The original intention proposed by Hale Surveys was to underpin the front bay structure." Again, that suggests to me that the expert sees underpinning and piling as two entirely separate things, because he specifically refers to underpinning and not piling. It also suggests that the original plan (and contrcat?) was based on underpinning and not piling. He also says "Piling is a different discipline usually undertaken by a specialist contractor who has the necessary equipment and skill to undertake this works." Again, this suggests to me that a builder who might be skilled and competent enough to undertake underpinning might not be sufficiently skilled and competent to undertake piling. What worries me is that because you engaged the builder in respect of Project 1 to carry out Hale Surveys' original intention to underpin the front bay structure, that underpinning is what the builder contracted to do, and not piling. This seems to be supported by para 12 of your witness statement where you say: "The structural engineer visited and recommended piling to complete the underpinning for Project 1." This appears to be the first mention of piling from the structural engineer. Do you understand what I'm getting at? I'm questioning whether your original contract for Project 1 (which I haven't seen) included piling, or whether it only mentioned underpinning. In your witness statement you say the original contract for Project 1 was included as Exhibit 2. Can we please see Exhibit 2 containing the original contract? The point I'm trying to make - in a roundabout way - is that if you only contrcated the builder to undertake underpinning on the instructions of your structural engineer, then I'm not sure a court would hold the builder liable for any additional piling that was required. Because he agreed to do underpinning, not piling. Do you understand what I'm getting at? I'm leaving this now for Christmas. I suggest you get cracking with comparing the costings in the expert's report against your schedule of loss and asking the tradesmen who provided your quotes and estimates why their figures are so different form the expert's figures. And then prepare questions for the expert. Don't get too hung up on the underpinning versus piling distinction. I think it's important but it only accounts for about £3k out of a toatl difference of £15k or £16k

Correct. "Not much of digging". Read #247 and #248 Both @FTMDave and I suggested that you check out the different surveyors presented to you. Bearing in mind you've got £16k at stake, making a choice based on whether or not they're on the internet might not be an optimal way of exercising a choice. Weren't you given an opportunity to nominate an expert?

@FTMDave - to be fair to simeon he was answering my question about the original counterclaim he filed back in 2020 or 2021, not the one he filed in January this year. I was again trying to get to the bottom of how he had originally justified a counterclaim to the value of £17k. I was concerned that either he or his legal friend had simply dreamt up a figure. I'm still none the wiser...

@simeon1964 - three points for you to consider over the next couple of days: 1. Regarding the quotes and estimates backing up your counterclaim Are you 100% certain that the quotes and estimates you have in support of your claim only cover the following three points and nothing else? First, work you paid the builder to do but he didn't do. Second, work that the builder did, but badly, and which now needs to be redone. Third, damage caused to your property by the builder while he was working on it. My understanding is that you can only claim under the above three categories - ie to cover losses actually incurred by you and caused by the builder. The court will not allow any element of "betterment" in your claim 2. Instructions to the expert Were you happy with the instructions given to the expert? (ie did those instructions address everything in your claim?) If you weren't happy with them, why didn't you get them amended so that you were happy? If you were happy with them, has the expert followed them in his report? 3. Compare the amounts in the expert's report against your schedule of loss I've already suggested this twice today and yesterday, and I see FTMDave has at #351 as well. You need to analyse the variances between your schedule of loss and the expert report. Then, if I were you, I'd go to the people who supplied your quotes (eg Cheshire Bespoke Building and Leigh Handyman/Eric Pang) and ask them why they think their figures are so much higher than the experts. I would also show them the instructions the expert was given You can then use that information to draft questions for the expert. If Cheshire Bespoke Building and Leigh Handyman come back to you and say anything like "But what you told us to base our quotes on is totally different from the instructions given to the expert! " then you have a problem... I can't suggest anything else really.

That is exactly what I'm beginning to wonder about...

Let me (try to) explain... The builder who simeon is currently counterclaiming against originally sued simeon for work he'd done but which simeon hadn't paid him for. simeon's reaction to that claim was to bung in a counterclaim ("with the help of a legal friend") for around £16k or £17k. It's that counterclaim for £16k or £17k that this thread is about. (It's a bit more complicated than that but I'm trying to keep this simple...) simeon has maintained all along that he has quotes and estimates from tradesmen to back up his counterclaim for £16k or £17k. My question to simeon was intended to get confirmation from him that the amount of money he was counterclaiming had some foundation in reality, and wasn't just a round figure plucked out of thin air by him and his "legal friend" - whoever that was. I interpret his answer to my question to mean that he is confirming that he has a whole bundle of tradesmen's quotes and estimates to support his counterclaim for £16k - £17k against the original builder, and that it isn't a figure plucked out of thin air. When simeon says "... he didn't write builders quotation (sic) ..." the builders he is referring to is not the builder he is suing, but the other tradesmen who have provided quotes to him on which he has based his counterclaim. Further he's confirming that neither he nor his "legal friend" conjured the figure up from nowhere. Hopefully that makes sense... simeon has been asked umpteen times by FTMDave and myself whether he has evidence to support the amount he is counterclaiming for. I am now wondering whether the quotes and estimates that simeon is relying on actually cover additional improvement and repair work to simeon's house that are nothing whatsoever to do with anything that the original builder was contracted to do... [Edit: crossposted with bazza #351]

Just a couple of observations before Christmas (and these are things that have been raised before but never I think been satisfactorily answered): 1. Other posters have previously queried how a couple of contracts valued in total at < £7k could result in a claim worth over £16k. The builder appears to have accepted that he is liable to the extent of £1k for work either not done or in need of redoing, but he asserts that the balance of the counterclaim (c £15k) is the value of work required to be done to "finish" the property - which had been bought cheap at auction - and is entirely unrelated to any work he was contracted to do, or to any damage he may have caused. (He offers the double-glazing as an example of this) Nobody here can make any judgment about all that. We have to rely on what simeon tells us. 2. Regarding just the £3k claimed for underpinning. The builder was retained for Project 1 to follow the instructions supplied by simeon's structural engineer - instructions which I don't think we've ever seen. I might have misremembered (this has dragged on for so long with lengthy periods of inactivity from simeon) but I was under the impression that the engineer had recommended, and given instructions for, underpinning rather than piling, and the builder took on the work on the basis that underpinning was required, not piling. It's not entirely clear to me why the builder should be liable for the £3k that had to be spent on piling The builder wasn't equipped to undertake piling, and so far as I know he accepted the job on the basis that it was for underpinning not piling. I have already asked simeon back in posts #267, #273 and #275 what instructions the builder was working to and whether they included piling, but never got an answer. I'm not sure why the builder should be responsible for the extra cost of piling if they were only contrcated to carry out underpinning. (I think the expert's report makes it clear that underpinning is a general building job whereas piling requires a specialist contractor.) These are just a couple of examples of anomalies that seem to keep rearing up as this case progresses...

What does the following mean then, in respect of your original counterclaim back in 2020 or 2021? Nearly a year ago I asked you why this "legal friend" who helped you get into this mess wasn't helping you now. I don't think you ever replied. You originally came here for help with this matter back in September 2021 when you were notified by the builder's solicitor that they were going to apply for the default judgement you won in June 2021 to be set aside. That default judgement that you won was in respect of a counterclaim you made against the builder after he sued you for a couple of grand. You counterclaimed for £16k or whatever long before you came to this forum. Being sued by builder - filed a counterclaim - General Legal Issues - Consumer Action Group AIUI your counterclaim for £16k was never actually tested in court because the builder didn't engage with the process and failed to defend it. So you won by default. Nobody who has replied to you in this thread knows whether your original counterclaim for £16k was justified or not. We haven't actually seen the state of your house before and after the builder did (or didn't) do the work you paid him for, we haven't seen the contracts detailing the work you contracted him to carry out, and we don't know what instructions you gave to the traders who you asked to provide estimates to you. Only you know all that and how that information relates to the expert's report. You've received help from the forum on the basis that you have evidence (photos, surveyor's reports, tradesmen's estimates etc) that you have told us backup your counterclaim for £16k. Assuming you actually have that evidence, you need to compare it against the expert's report and use that comparison to come up with questions to ask the expert. But you have to do that yourself because you have all the information to allow you to do so - we don't... If I were you, I think I'd go back to the people who gave you the estimates, show them the expert's report, and ask them what questions you should be asking the expert. So for example, you could ask Cheshire Bespoke Building Ltd why they think the expert has costed the double-glazing completion/replacement at only £65 whereas they quoted you £1600. See what I mean? You need to identify why two separate traders (Cheshire Bespoke Building and Leigh Handyman/Eric Pang) have given you two quotes totalling over £13000 whereas the expert says the work you are counterclaiming for totals just £1000. Only you can do that. Nobody else here can.

Just to comment on one item only... simeon's item 12 (double glazing left incomplete) is valued by simeon at £1600 and that figure is backed up by an estimate by Cheshire Bespoke Building Limited. But the expert costs it at only £65 (item 24). There are similar examples throughout... I think I can only conclude that whoever has provided the estimates to simeon has not been costing the jobs on the same basis and assumptions as the expert has. Either that or (1) they intend ripping simeon off, or (2) they really don't want the work and have submitted ridiculously expenxive estimates to put him off. If I were simeon I'd carry out the analysis I suggested earlier and see what the variance is on each heading of loss. Bazza has already done half the work by mapping the items on the schedule of loss across to the items on the expert's list. And I think that was the most difficult part. The question then is why do the two sets of figures differ so greatly. I have to say though, from my experience of having work done on a house, the expert's costings seem unrealistically low to me. But not so low as to explain a difference of > £15k (I do wonder how much of this is explained by the history. IIRC the builder originally sued simeon for a couple of grand in respect of unpaid work. In response simeon (as advised by a "friend") whacked in a counterclaim for £16k or £17k, which simeon won by default but didn't enforce it, and then the builder got it set aside. I wonder how much basis in reality that original counterclaim had... )

@FTMDave and I helped simeon draft the particulars at #133. So far as I'm aware those are the particulars he filed. (Of course he never confirms anything in a clear and straightforward manner so I'm not 100% clear... ) As I recall, they were drafted on the understanding that @simeon1964 would add onto the draft the details of what amount of money he was claiming under each heading. (See, I think, para 18(a) - (d) of the particulars and references in that para to Exhibits 1 to 5 which were meant to deatil the losses he was claiming for).

[Cross-posted with Bazza] @simeon1964 - if you want to know what questions you need to ask the expert, I would start off as follows: 1. Open a spreadsheet (or just use a piece of paper) and list on it each item on your schedule of loss. (Which, incidentally, is another document I don't recall seeing). 2. Against each individual item of loss list the amount of money you claimed in respect of it. 3. Then find the corresponding item of loss on the expert report, and list the amount of money the expert costed it at. 4. For each item calculate the difference between the amount you claimed for it and the amount the expert costed it at. 5. Add up all the differences. It ought to come to £15k - £16k. 6. Ask yourself why there is a difference of £15k - £16k. Don't you have quotes and estimates to backup the amount you were claiming? And I'll go back to a question I asked earlier today: when you agreed the instructions for the expert, were you satisfied that those insructions covered all the issues that you were claiming for in your schedule of loss?

No. If you mean me I had no input whatsoever to that witness statement. Although it looks as though at least some of it is based on the detailed Particulars of Claim that FTMDave and I helped you draft in January... Just looking at this again I'm totally confused. You say "... Here is expert report Part 1 and Part 2 follows:... " and then you leave a blank space followed by "... Here is expert report Part 2 continuation:... " and you post a pdf document entitled schedule of photographs (which, incidentally, contains no photographs!). So is the expert report in one part or two parts? You've only posted one document. And if the document called schedule of photographs is the expert report, why the hell isn't it called Expert Report????

I'd also like to see what instructions the two parties gave to the expert they jointly appointed. @simeon1964 needs to confirm whether those instructions (which he must have agreed to) actually addressed all of the issues contained in the schedule of loss in his particulars of claim. Has anything not been covered? When helping simeon draft the particulars @FTMDave and I relied* on simeon's assurance that he had evidence (quotes and estimates etc) supporting a claimof £17k. It would seem the independent expert either disagrees massively with those costings, or his instructions didn't cover all the heads of loss... *To the best of my recollection. It was almost a year ago now

You don't need to search for the counterclaim. @FTMDave and I drafted it based on what you told us and it's at #133. What you were asked to post is a copy of your Witness Statement. That will introduce the evidence that you submitted to the court in support of your £17000 counterclaim...

So remind me, you were counterclaiming for £17,000? And is the expert witness saying that he costs the work needed to put things right at only £1,000? Is that what he's saying?

So just to clarify: you booked an all-inclusive 5 night holiday for three people but when your booking confirmation arrived it was only for one room and B&B. Is that right? How many rooms did you originally book? You didn't say in your first post, but presumably more than one.* How many people is the confirmation for? You don't say, but presumably it isn't for three people.* And you have nothing to show (eg screenshots of what you booked) that this is Love Holidays' error and not yours? *[Edit: on reading again I see that you booked one room for three people but the confirmation turned it into a twin room for two presumably. And the dates were wrong too? Again, have you got screenshots of what you booked?]

Thanks. Presumably you refer to Reg 5.3? 5.3 An operating air carrier shall not be obliged to pay compensation in accordance with Article 7, if it can prove [my emphasis] that the cancellation is caused by extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken. I think some people believe that because we have left the EU that EU directives etc that had been passed into UK legislation no longer apply. But my understanding (which might be wrong) is that they continue to apply until Parliament passes legislation specifically repealing each one.

So you have an email from an authorised dealer telling you that the fault was, or must have been, present when you took delivery of the car? I would have thought that was very much to your benefit from a consumer rights point of view. But as I said earlier, see what others think. You've got a lot at stake and I'm not 100% confident on used car cases. I don't feel qualified to give you definite advice...

I know nothing of making a claim for cancelled flights and I don't know if @Kyosanto is right when he says that EC261 is still enforced by UK courts and that the balance of proof is on the airline . But even if @Kyosanto is wrong, doesn't the claimant here satisfy the initial burden of proof by providing the archived weather information* given by @Kyosanto in #7, and the burden of proof then switches to the airline to show that the claimant's evidence as to the weather was wrong? Isn't that how the adversarial system works? The plaintiff makes a claim based on what they say the weather conditions were like on the day (and they back that claim up by reference to independent weather data as in #7). Then it's up to the defendant to show that the plaintiff is wrong. If the airline can't produce evidence to demonstrate that the plaintiff's evidenced claims about the weather are wrong, doesn't the airline lose? If they can't provide evidence that the weather was so unusually bad that the flight had to be cancelled, the only evidence in front of the court is that from the plaintiff showing the weather was ok and the flight should not have been cancelled. If that is the only evidence, how would a court find against the plaintiff? *I'm making no comment here as to the reliability of the info supplied by @Kyosanto in #7 - I've no idea what it proves as I know absolutely nothing about flying or airlines. I'm merely commenting on @whitelist's assertion that the whole burden of proof lies on the claimant and that the airline need demonstrate nothing. I also have no idea what the weather was like on the day or if BA are right or wrong.

What I meant about the warranty is this: most people who have bought a used car and have problems with it - especially within the first six months - are advised to pursue the dealer by enforcing their statutory rights as a consumer under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (legislation.gov.uk) rather than by pursuing any warranty rights. That is because most used car warranties are so limited and so restricted that they aren't worth the paper they are written on. (But - in the highly unlikely event that a warranty offered the consumer better protection than the legislation, it might be better for the consumer to use the warranty rather than their statutory rights. I doubt that is the case here, but, bearing in mind it's a Ferrari from an authorised dealer, I suppose I was speculating as to just how good the terms of a 2 year Ferrari warranty actually are...) You probably should have gone back to the dealer in the first place and told them you were using your statutory consumer right to reject the car, not their warranty. As I've tried to explain above, you probably ought to forget the warranty as it almost certainly will not give you even equivalent protection to the legislation, let alone better. However, because you seem to have tried to get it fixed under warranty, the Newcastle dealer happily appears to have confirmed that the fault was present when you bought the car and that the Manchester dealer should have fixed it before selling it to you. It seems to me that that confirms that the car was sold to you in a faulty condition and that you ought to be able to reject it under the legislation for a refund. Do you have any evidence from the Newcastle dealer telling you this? A letter, an email, a text? HOWEVER... before you get too excited and think this will be easy to resolve, you really need to see what other posters make of this situation. I'm not a lawyer and I'm not an expert on how the legislation I've referred to above relates specifically to the "sale" on HP of used cars. It might be more complicated and more difficult than I've suggested... Also I'm concerned that you've got £170k potentially at stake here. Personally - were I in that situation - I think I might want to pay to get professional legal advice.

I'll just make a couple of further comments before leaving this for others to pick up. 1. You bought car on 26 July and immediately notified dealer of bluetooth fault. They said they'd raise a ticket. You chased this a few times but when you were finally referred to the dealer's service dept over two months later they told you no ticket had ever been raised?! I'd suggest that that could be construed as their one permitted attempt under the legislation to fix the problem and they bungled it - by doing sweet FA! 2. When you went to the dealer in Newcastle, I'm a bit surprised they told you that the fault wasn't covered by the warranty because it was present at purchase. Is that why the Manchester dealership had to pay the Newcastle one for the work they did? And it's further evidence (from the Newcastle dealership) that the fault was present at purchase! 3. Consumers are normally advised to pursue their statutory consumer rights under the legislation rather than any warranties - unless the warranty is extremely unusual in that it offers better protection than statute. I suppose that as this is a very high value purchase of a prestige marque from (presumably an equally prestigeous) authorised dealer, that it might be worthwhile checking the T&Cs of the warranty to see what it covers. 4. I personally don't know what - if any - difference it makes that this is a HP purchase.