Apologies, This should work. sheriff judgement.pdf

Sheriffs Judgement in PDF format

Sheriff's original Judgement ~$eriff judgement doc format.doc

Never thought about that SFU, shows that sometimes you can't see the wood for the trees! Cheers

Can not remember what trailer advertising said and trailer well gone. Paid him by cheque but no invoice 9or estimate) ever received. I agree your point about him not describing himself as anything, how many peoples services do we use without ever knowing their full capabilities, qualifications etc. and just assume that they are capable of doing job. I still think the fact that he built is own house shows that he DID have building skills, but sadly for my wife and I he did not use them on our property. We have a complete set of weather records from an independent weather station based 20 miles away, and Met Office records from their nearest station (Wick Airport - 40 miles away). These confirm our claim that the wind speed was nothing like the speeds recorded in Orkney & Shetland. The £5000 shed issue is chalk and cheese, or apple and pear as you put it. I am sure that if I had a shed built by a decent size building company then they would have used the correct materials to ensure that roof remained in situ. We had NEVER obtained an estimate or quote for a shed and when we askked brian for a quote the figure seemed to be OK so we went ahead. The reason why I never called the charted Surveyor to court was to control costs which I was informed that: ".. Should it be necessary for me to attend court in Inverness at another suitable time our fee will be £600 (plus VAT) per attendance and travel costs at 40p per mile (plus VAT) from Halkirk.." As I had been advised that I could only recover expenses of up to 10% of my total claim I did not deem it cost effective. Oh for the benefit of hindsight

Once again, many thanks SFU. One point which I feel I should make is that at time of his work we did not know he was a "handyman" and not a builder. The first time that we became aware of him calling himself a handyman was when we received his defence for proof hearing. He submitted about 6 testimonials from old customers, all type in same font, with same layout and all had customers referring to him as a "General Handyman". he lives about 6 miles away from us and like us on the coast so he would have been aware of any problems the general weather would cause, even more so giving the fact that he built his house. The reason that we hired him in the first place is that he lives on the main route into Thurso and had a trailer parked in his driveway with a sign on it advertising his services. I can not recall exactly what sign said but I do recall it mentioned plumbing and we had a plumbing job needed doing. This job was caried out in an acceptable manner ( and is still OK) and I think it was whilst chatting to him whilst he was doing this job that he told us that he could do other type of work other than plumbing. I cannot recall the actual exchanges which took place but at no time did he ever say or suggest that he was not capable. On all the jobs that are in question he gave price and we accepted with no haggling, indeed we provided some of the materials (door & windows) for shed which would have saved him the cost of purchasing them. I have spoken to people who have had him work on tiling and he does not employ a sub contractor for this aspect of his work. It is a pity that these people do not bring similar actions aginst him but unfortunately they are of the "ostrich approach"

Many thanks SFU, your post has give me a new insight into problem. Although advertising as a "handyman", the defender actually built his own house (pic attached) and since it was erected 4/5 years ago the roof has never blown off! I accept that there could be a difference between "handyman" and "tradesman" i.e. if I wanted a top notch brick built structure with detailed finishing, then I would have had to engage a "tradesman". All I wanted though was a waterproof block built shed, and surely if defender thought that this was beyond me then he should not have accepted job. He quoted for job and despite comments from S.C.A.B. person there was no haggling over price. The Sheriff relied on a figure produced by the defender of £4/5000 for a similar shed. This figure was obtained by the defender calling out a medium size Thurso based, building company for an estimate on erecting a shed at his Mother in Laws house. There is no doubt that this would have been a much better shed, but to show the other side of the coin, I could have bought a timber shed from B&Q for about £500, which would have been more robust than the one erected by defender. In his adverts he also states that he is a “kitchen and bathroom fitter” surely these roles require a certain amount of skill for the tiling requirements, again these skills were neglected when the defender did the tiling at my property. The Sheriff barely mentioned this aspect of claim. I have looked before to see what entails being a “handyman” but it is such a grey area with different sites providing different criteria as to what skills, or lack of skills are required. Wikipedia offers a list at the bottom of page: Handyman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia looking through this list, all elements of the work the defender did for me are mentioned but I agree that your average “White van man” would lack a lot of the skills listed. I will take your advice and trawl internet to see if I can get more specific examples of similar cases. I do have examples of what you suggest at bottom of post such as final invoices, local weather records. Once again, many thanks for your very informative post, will keep you advised.

Photographs of defenders work are now at: Flickr: kevinjplee's Photostream

Attached are the defenders reply to Sheriffs Stated case. Pt 1, is signed by the person from S.C.A.B. who has assisted defender throughout. In court this lady said that she would be acting and speaking on his behalf as he is "dyslexic". Pt2 was wrote by this S.C.A.B. lady and and you will note that it starts at topic No 3. I contacted Dornoch Court and was infomed that this was how they received document. Page 8 onwards are just her comments on the submitted photographic exhibits Defenders reply to stated case.pdf

Attached is my reply to Sheriff's Stated case

At last! Judgement, Appeal and Stated Case now attached in edited form sherrifs judgement.pdf Sheriffs stated case.pdf

Sheriff's stated case 1-3

Sheriff's stated case Attached 4-7

Appeal attached Appeal.pdf

Apologies to all for my forum ignorance. Judgement now enclosed in correct format