Hi, I could really do with some advice please. I’d asked for a copy of his insurance & warranty provision (he’s on the trustmark register) he’s refusing to give it unless my solicitor sends a letter. is this right?!! thanks

Well, after 30 days mediation has ended, with no resolution, FMB saying me leaving honest reviews in Google & trade directories as causing toxicity, kind of grates as today we found significantly more non compliance issues which are going to cost more to fix. Now to decide next steps. Feeling time for legal process. Claim is for circa £15k, we owe builder circa £4K, so would my claim be £9k, can I count the amount we’ve held back as covering remedial work? I’ve been hearing advice not to split claim into multiple <£10k claims to get through small claims, any feedback? I can’t afford the risk of fast track ;(. Thank you for any advice.

Update… FMB have passed my dispute to QASSS resolution, let dispute resolution begin.. any advice?

ok, really sorry, its not brief, concerns about behaviour, quality of work, non compliance, pricing, so heres a long list of events, Ive condensed it as much as I can, its in attachment, found i couldnt paste into here, hope that ok.... consumer action notes.docx

Hi there. Yes I do have some pictures. The independent surveyor also took extensive pictures. I do have a document with bullet points on that gives an overview. It’s not brief though. I will try to shorten it down and post a summary on here later today. thank you for replying.

Looking at our contract we can refuse to let them return if we have enough concerns about their work / competence, which I believe we do. I have raised a dispute with the Federation of Master Builders. I’m not expecting much support from their mediation / ADR process but understand it’s a process we need to follow if we want to proceed with this. So, if unsuccessful I’m assuming the step after would involve a claim, quotes coming in over £10k, although I think there are some items that we would not put in the claim and just have to put up with (like cladding material not being what was verbally agreed) so potentially it could be under £10k. We owe the builder nearly £4K which we’ve held back, as per contract where we gave them a pay less notification for final monies owed. Am I right that they could have raised a dispute with FMB if they had a desire to resolve? In any case we’ve just raised one, and that they could now put in a claim against us for monies outstanding? Final question, we’ve held back neatly £4K, cost estimate of work we want fixing (I.e we can’t live with as non compliance building regs, really unsatisfactory work etc), probably about £12k, would our claim then be for £8k so could go through small claims court? thank you for any advice/support, I’ve never been in this situation before, it’s making me very anxious and scared tbh.

Hi there. an update for you 1) independent surveyor report was sent to builder on 13 Dec. 2) builder only responded yesterday. They dispute the majority of the issues identified. Claiming for example: that we have influenced the expert witness surveyor, that we have caused some of the issues by undoing work, that that the surveyor is wrong, 3) through trading standards we gave them the month of nov to finish plus put things (known) right, at no point did they say a month was unreasonable, they were onsite for less than 10 days of nov, early nov building control initially visited and highlighted issues, they claim building control have now signed off their work at the end of nov 4) building control visited last week at my request, there are still issues with their work, it has not been signed off and never was at the end of nov 4) builder now says there they didn’t have time to put known things right in nov (they are always contradicting themselves) and that they should be allowed to return to site to fix these ‘minor snags’, the majority are not minor snags, they are building regulation contraventions 5) we have quotes from 3rd parties to do the work. We do not want the original builders back because: a)quality of their workmanship has been called into question by ourselves, building control and a 3rd party surveyor b) lack of trust in what they tell us - for example they’ve deviated from the plan, used different materials, refused to fix items saying nothing wrong and it’s how they always do it, refused to give deadlines, knowingly cut corners, have said work is signed off when it isn’t etc c) their behaviour: smoking weed on site, urinating next to my garden office, swearing, smoking, leaving the house with doors wide open and unlocked, leaving site unsafe with scaffold boards & materials lying across/over paths at end of day/week, all these things were raised with them verbally & in emails d) they repeatedly said they hate working for us, they can’t wait to leave, none of them enjoy coming here etc so, my question is.. do we have to allow them to return or can we say that we want a refund or for them to cover 3rd party costs? im feeling that they have had enough opportunities to do the right thing and put things right, I’m also feeling that we aren’t being unreasonable by not wanting them back.. they say they can’t understand why we are rushing to get 3rd parties to finish the job and that the job is ‘live ‘ with them. my feeling is that this job should have been finished in July (at no point have they provided a revised completion date despite us asking numerous times), they were given nov to finish & go, we’ve not heard from them over past 2 months so how could it still be live, and that we’ve spent 2 cold months living in a half finished house which doesn’t have heating completed, is damp & draughty, Ofcourse we want to get it finished asap! Any input would be appreciated, thank you.

Thank you. Yes it’s residential. Owned by the builder & his wife who are both company directors. Huge apologies.

Thank you both for your prompt responses. Totally agree ref reviews. We went with them because they are FMB and Trading Standards members, little did we know this counts for little, they were also highly recommended by neighbours over the road and were mid priced out of the 3 quotes we received. We thought we were making a good choice. Ref assets, sorry to be naive but how can I ascertain? I know they have 2 vans, a digger, tools etc but no idea if they own or lease etc I’m working on chasing builders for quotes etc. To date we’ve spent a huge number of hours on this liasing with the builders & then trading standards etc it’s consumed our life.. but press on we must. Yes that’s them!

Hi there, thank you for responding.. - value is £80k - desperately trying to get quotes for remediation from others , difficult due to time of year. - Independent Assessment £1500, - £200 septic tank emptying as they routed ground water to it & clogged it up with soil and it blocked the system just 2 months after it was last emptied, normally emptied annually - I work from home as a therapist, have had to limit my biz growth, not advertise or offer day sessions as they’ve overrun, need to quantify how many appointments I potentially have missed - have had to delay trades, flooring, decorators etc prices may have increased - had to pay £500 for muck away, because they bought the muck from another job to level our garden rather than using the muck from the soakaways they didn’t want to dig but we’re made to by building control think that’s most areas of costs.. Name is Maple Builders (Hampshire) ltd. thank you

Hello there, recently had an extension built, took builder an extra 4 months to complete over the 4 month agreed timescale, huge inconvenience to us and impact on our family, we raised concerns about workmanship throughout, some issues fixed, others he claimed ‘that’s how we do it’. He’s an FMB and Trading standards Buy with Confidence member. He denies defects so we’ve had an independent expert witness report undertaken which lists lots of issues: defects, non compliance building regs, not to plan etc including the fact some of his ‘fixes’ haven’t fixed the issues. We’ve sent him the report, stating we will be getting another contractor to quote to undertake the work and will claim back cost from him. We have one last invoice from him due, this will not cover the cost of remediation work. We’ve issued a notice of not paying final amount and that unless we can agree a resolution we will be raising a dispute with FMB. Anybody has any similar experiences? It’s so stressful. Anything I need to be mindful off? We haven’t engaged with a solicitor yet, feeling we might have to.. thank you in advance for any advice.