Defective building work - builder disputing

[BankFodder]

What is the value of the contracted work?
What is the value of the remedial work intended to address the defects?
Have you incurred any other losses because of the delays all the independent assessment? Maybe you could list them out.

What is the name of the builder?

[BankFodder]

So the value of the contract was £80,000

You had an independent inspection which cost you £1500 you had no quotes yet for the cost of remedial work.

I think there is very little you can do until you understand what is going to cost you to put things right.

I understand very well that this time of year it may be difficult but you better move this along as a priority.

In the meantime, keep a close detail on the expenses you incur and also the amount of time that you spend dealing with this – even learning about it or visiting this forum.

If the remedial cost is less than £10,000 then you would be looking at a claim which goes onto the small claims track – assuming that it has to go to court. The small claims track means that even if you lose you won't be liable for the other side's costs. However if the claim exceeds £10,000 then it would normally go on to the fast track and this means that you would be liable for a substantial amount of the other side's costs if you lost.

Even if you win your case – which on the basis of what you say seems pretty likely – you then have the problem of enforcement and so you need to make enquiries as to the assets of the company.

They seem to be very well established – 2007 – accounts up-to-date – but the strange thing is that there only seems to be three reviews available and for a company which had been going that long, one would expect several hundreds – a mixture of good and bad.

I always treat good reviews with scepticism and I'm always more interested in the three star reviews, the two star reviews and the one star reviews – but here there is very little to go on.

You say that you are considering going to a solicitor. I would hold off for the moment and let's see what we can find out and advise here. The more work you do for yourself than the less money you will have to pay to a solicitor – but don't imagine that if you win, you are going to have all your solicitors costs covered.
It doesn't work that way. You simply get reasonable costs covered and the rest you have to bear yourself.

Also, solicitors aren't very agile in their approach and you could end up in several months of exchange of correspondence before finally your solicitor decided that maybe it was time to bring a claim.

You will find that we tend to take a rather more assertive and aggressive approach once we are certain that you have got a substantial chance of winning.

You had better set about getting quotes for the work – and of course in the end you may even have to get another independent assessment. But not yet.

[BankFodder]

Please will you notice that my site team colleague has had to restructure your first post to introduce spacing to make it more readable and I have just had to do the same thing with your most recent post.

We would prefer not to have to do this

[BankFodder]

Although they own the property, it doesn't mean that it is a company asset.