On advice from friends I went to a solicitor. I have already paid him £780 to no avail. He now wants another £900 to continue discussions with me and file a formal defence if negotiations fail. I just haven't got the money and I'm not working - well not getting paid anyway! The deadline for submitting my defence was 10th march but the claimant wants to continue negotiating and they have promised to give us 48 hours notice if they intend to proceed( will they give me the same courtesy? solicitors hate dealing with lay people.). I do not have this in writing (all communications have been Without Prejudice) so I am worried about being caught out by them. I will part company with my solicitor today and ask him for all the paperwork he has accumulated, including the court papers and claim. I have no formal agreement with him or his firm, am I ok to do this - I don't want more trouble!! Is there a guide or a template around or can anybody give me step by step guidance on how to draw up my defence and submit a counter claim. I really think I should know how to do this and start planning it now in case they try and stitch me. I know all the facts and can provide a time line of course. I assume that I keep my best arguments and evidence, up my sleeve in case I have to rely on them in court, should that be necessary. Hope somebody can oblige Thanks Ritchyp

Hi Everybody, I have just joined the forum, I found it by doing a search on how to defend yourself in the county court. Here is my story: I bought a plot of land with detailed planning permission for a very unusual, modern looking detached house in my home town. I am not a builder by profession, never the less, I am no stranger to the industry as my late Father was a builder and I grew up around building sites and did a lot of building work when I was a teenager and up until I was 25 (I am 47 now.) I spent my time since then in Music, starting in bands and eventually earned a very modest living writing jingles and underscore music for TV. I am currently living in a static caravan on the building site and have been since June 2010. I need to finish the house as soon as possible so that I can go back to writing music and start earning a living again. Because of lack of space, security, and insurance reasons, i can't have my mini studio kit in the caravan so I have no income at present and I am almost out of funds. The project, I took on is worthy of a spot on Grand designs and I don't know what I was thinking when i took it on but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Needless to say, I bit off a bit more than I can chew with only myself and a skill less 17 boy for an assistant (my son) and the odd specialist sub-contractor (bricklayers, roofers, electrician etc.) The roof, which has caused me so many problems, is curved and has 2 curved slopes on different levels. The project was for sale at auction and had plans drawn and was ready to go (or so the auctioneer said!!) this was not the case. However, I soldiered on and eventually work commenced 5 months later! The roof was designed to be clad in exterior grade plywood and covered in a single ply membrane. When I tried to buy the recommended brand of materials from the manufacturer, i found that one company ICB ltd had sole rights to supply this product (Alwitra, Evalon - V) in the UK. They would not sell me the product directly and told me that they would give me the details of 5 roofing contractors in my region that were trained and allowed to install the product. I perhaps unwisely, went for the cheapest quote and that is where the nightmare began! On advice from friends who can see how badly this is affecting me, I went to see a solicitor for a free legal consultation and that resulted in me trying to settle out of court. i had to pay the solicitor £650 +vat on account before he would proceed any further, in an attempt to settle the matter out of court. He got me a 14 day extension from the initial 28 days I had to enter a defence and counter claim but then he left it until the very last day to send the roofer's solicitors the terms of my offer, to which he has turned down. Now the solicitor wants another £510 to continue negotiating or file a defence and counter claim should that be necessary. This is the letter he sent to them: Dear Sirs, Re: G*** t/a G*** Roofing -v- Me WITHOUT PREJUDICE______________________________ We have now had an opportunity of going through this matter in detail with our client. Before setting out our client’s complaints and proposals, it may help if we set out a potted history of this matter. Our client is constructing a prestigious development in the town centre of a small town called ***** in Wiltshire, designed by a local firm of architects. It has detailed Planning Permission for an iconic, very modern, detached house. The design of the house is shown on the plans marked “A” annexed to this letter and in the architect’s artist impression annexed marked “B”. As will be seen, the house has a curved or barrel shaped roof which is a principle feature of the design. You will also see that there is a line of windows in the vertical face between the two roof slopes, the upper slope to the rear and the lower slope to the front. The view through these windows to the front of the property consists of water meadows and the river Kennet and is over the front roof slope. As a result that entire lower curved roof slope is highly visible. This will feature later. We understand your client’s involvement is as follows. The specification for the roof surface material was Alwitra Evalon - V single ply membrane. Our client contacted the UK supplier ICB Limited, who advised him that a number of contractors had already quoted for this roof (the previous owners of the property who had obtained the Planning Permission had intended developing the property for themselves and had been in contact with the contractors). ICB put our client in contact with those who had previously quoted, including your client.. Our client sent an e-mail to all the proposed contractors attaching the basic planning drawings showing the design. These are the plans at enclosure A. A copy of our client’s e-mail dated 10th May, 2010 is attached marked “C”. Your client did not visit the site and we understand he simply re-issued the quotation he had provided to the previous owners. That quote is dated 12th May in the sum of £3,243.13 plus V.A.T. That quote was purely for the laying of the membrane to both roof slopes and the garage roof. Following receipt of that quotation our client replied to your client’s email, asking him to quote for the all the work required to the roof. In addition our client also spoke to your client on the telephone and specifically explained that the roof would need curved edge profiles (to follow the edge of the roof as shown in the north west and south east elevations on plan “A” ) and various other items. Your client therefore sent a further quotation on 19th May including these items for £6,169.75 plus V.A.T. On receipt of that invoice, our client telephoned your client to point out again that the profiles needed to be curved. At that point, your client advised ours that Alwitra Evalon profiles were only available in grey and that in order to match the colour of the membrane, they would all need to be powder coated in the correct matching colour at an extra cost, on 8th September your client e-mailed ours a revised quotation of £6,494.75. At no time was any term for stage payments agreed. Our client accepted your client’s quotation by e-mail on 8th September having agreed that your client would carry out the work on the 13th September. Your client did not attend on 13th September but the roofing membrane and adhesive was delivered to site on 15th September. In a subsequent telephone conversation our client suggested your client visit the site so he could fully assess the necessary requirements, but he declined to do so. To assist your client, on 6th October our client sent him scaled elevations and a sectional drawing plus six relevant photographs of the roof, again clearly showing its curved profile. Your client finally attended site on 19th October and carried out the basic installation of the membrane on the rear roof slope (but not the edge profiling or standing seams etc.) Our client has not identified any problems with that work. Our client has prepared a bundle of photographs of your clients work. This is attached. The rear roof slope is shown in photographs 1-2. On 19th October and before any work had commenced, our client asked your client about the curved edge profiles. Your client then advised him that he intended to carry this out by using straight profiles which he would then cut at regular intervals and manually bend, pleat and fold it, to force it to curve. He then produced a sample of the straight profile for our client to consider and to further demonstrate your client’s approach to a solution. Our client pointed out that this would be totally unacceptable as it would have resulted in a profile around the most featured edges of the roof curve which are highly visible, made up of what appeared to be a whole series of discreet straight sections cut, bent and over lapped in an attempt to follow the curve of the roof. Your client then asked ours if he should proceed to order the powder coated straight profiles and our client told him not to. Your client then rang the ICB warehouse to cancel his order. Our client also contacted ICB immediately, in an attempt to procure the fully curved edge profiles your client had contracted to provide. These discussions regarding the curved profiles took place within the first half an hour of your client coming on site and we understand that your client took some exception to our client’s comments and wishes regarding the edge profile and we suspect that this may be the origin of the ill will which appears to be permeating this dispute. During the course of the 19th October your client advised our client that he had insufficient membrane to complete both roof slopes and the garage roof. It appeared that your client had estimated the area assuming a flat roof surface not the longer curved surface. Had he studied and measured the scaled drawings or visited the site to measure up, this would have been identified sooner. On completing the laying of the rear roof slope your client agreed to return to lay the front roof slope membrane on the following Wednesday (27th October). On the 26th October, your client spoke to ours on the telephone. In that conversation, our clients discussed the issue of the curved profiles and the work generally. Our client suggested that in the circumstances your client simply install the membrane on both roof slopes as per the original quote of 12th May and omit the curved profiles and other works. Your client agreed to this but cancelled the completion of the work on 27th October, promising to have it finished by Saturday 30th October at the latest and that he would let our client know which day but he turned up without warning on 29th October. When your client arrived on site on the 29th October our client was not there. In the intervening period our client had been carrying out further preparation work on the front roof slope including sanding it to achieve the best possible finish for your client to use. When our client arrived back at the site, he found your client already installing the membrane. As far as our client could see he appeared to be taking no steps to clear any of the dust and debris from the sanding off the roof slope and despite our client providing him with a vacuum cleaner he continued to ignore the fine dust and debris on the roof. We understand your client became rather indignant in relation to our client’s advice that the roof slope needed strict cleaning first. Having made his point, our client therefore left your client to get on with the work. From our client’s observation, your client laid the roof as fast as he could, leaving a very short space of time between laying the adhesive and laying the membrane. On your client completing the front roof slope, it was clear to our client that the standard of work was very different from the rear slope and was covered with blisters, creases and “rucks”. Furthermore, our client noticed that there was a horizontal join part way down the roof slope which was clearly visible from the second floor windows directly above. Following words between our respective clients, your client left site without carrying out any further work. Following your client leaving site our client took photographs of the front roof slope. These are at photographs 3-9. of the bundle. These clearly show the bubbles and rucks. In one case these go right across a run of membrane and one extends right on to the open edge of a skylight (see photo 7). Our client has recently taken a further set of photographs of the front roof slope. These are at photographs 10 – 15. of the bundle. There has been no material change in the state of the roof in the four and a half months since the membrane was installed. We have seen the letter from Mr. Taylor of ICB attached to your letter of 1st February. We are not impressed. ICB are hardly independent and are protecting their interests. On looking at the photographs, it is clear to the writer that not all the blistering can be due to solvent. For instance, the “blistering or ruck” in photograph 10 appears to run across the whole of the run of membrane and is not an isolated pocket. Furthermore, the ruck shown in photograph 8 has an open end where it reaches the skylight opening. This would have allowed any build-up of solvent to evaporate easily. Incidentally we understand that the manufacture recommends that the adhesive be allowed to almost dry before the membrane is laid specifically to prevent any build-up of solvent. Solvent bubbles would therefore indicate that the membrane was laid too soon. Given the speed with which your client laid the membrane on the front roof slope we wonder whether this was done and whether any of the instructions in the Alwitra installation manual were adhered to. We now come to the issue of the join in one of the runs. This is shown in photograph 9. Your client was well aware of the architecture and visual importance of this front roof slope both when viewed from below and out of the second floor windows. We have dealt with this in detail above. The join is unsightly and detracts from the visual effect of the roof. Whilst a join may in some cases be acceptable on an inconspicuous flat roof it is not acceptable hear. No joins were required on the rear of the property and whilst our clients view is that no join should have been made here your client should have raise the issue with ours if he thought any join may have been necessary. It must have been patently obvious that such a join would have been clearly visible from the windows and detract from the visual amenity of the roof. As you will appreciate, the above is not an exhaustive analysis or description of the problem but sufficient to illustrate our client’s position. We enclose for your information a recent e-mail from Mr. Dixon, the national sales director of ICB and whilst we would again make the comment that he can hardly be described as independent and that our client takes issue with any suggestion that the bubbles had settled at all, even his assessment was that it could take a further six months or more for solvent bubbles to settle. Given that from the photographs there appears to have been no material change in four months, it is difficult to see why there should be any change in a further six months… In any event, that would take us to over ten months since the membrane was laid. Common sense would indicate that if the supplier is indicating it would take that length of time, something must be amiss. Finally we would point out that our client’s most photographs and the email from Mr. Dixon clearly show that the comment in your email dated 1st February 2011 that the drying out process had taken place and the blisters had disappeared is clearly incorrect. Our client’s proposals Litigating this matter will be an expensive process for both parties. Neither party will recover all their costs even if successful. There will need to be an independent expert’s report on the work your client carried out to the roof and our client will obviously enter a counter-claim for the full cost of stripping off the roof and re-installing the new membrane together with the cost of fabricating the curved edge profiles if your client maintains that this was still part of the contract. This may all require a further experts report. We would anticipate that the cost of stripping the membrane, repairing, re-preparing or replacing if necessary the plywood underneath and installing a new membrane, etc., would be an expensive exercise as would having curved profiles fabricated. As we discussed on the telephone, this case cries out to be settled. Our client has no complaint regarding the installation of the rear (upper) roof slope. The obvious solution is for our client to pay yours for this work and the cost of the front slope etc. to be waived. The area of the rear slope is 69.5 square metres (rounded up to 70). With a contract price of £3,243.13 +vat as per the quote of 12th May and a total area of 108 square metres the sum due to your client would be £2102.03 +vat. Our client would then be responsible for all the remedial costs and the cost of completing the work. Further, as a mark of good faith, our client is prepared to offer your client an extra £500 towards the wasted materials and his sundry expenses making a total of £2602.03. Providing our client is provided with a V.A.T. invoice for this amount, our client is happy to pay the V.A.T. on the above sum (at 17.5%) making a total payment due to your client of £3,057.39. Would you please note that the above proposal is in full and final settlement of the proceedings your client has issued against ours (including the costs thereof) and any claim or claims which either party has or may have against the other arising out of or in any way whatsoever connected with the work carried out or to be carried out by your client to the roof at our client’s property. We confirm that our client is in funds and payment could be made within seven days of acceptance and invoice. Yours faithfully, MGWlaw I do not feel like i have been represented very well by my solicitor and of course, he is happy to litigate this to his heart's content. I cannot afford to throw good money after bad and feel like I should do the rest of the litigation myself but I don't know where to start. I am not sure shy nor scared to do this as I did my own conveyancing for the land transaction. Something was amiss with transfer document the vendor's solicitor had drafted and it resulted in me having to go toe to toe with him, communicating on an almost daily basis until we got a solution everybody was happy with, I nearly pulled out of the purchasel even though contracts had been exchanged when I paid the deposit after the hammer had fallen. I really need some help and advice please:???: This guy has really got to me - ask my GP.... : This is a massive post! I know so I think I should leave it here for now. Please moderators, transfer this to the appropriate sub forum. Cheers Ritchy