To Pay or not to pay? When is a contract breached? And how to proceed in this case?

[cabbies crick]

Unfortunately though I join with a mangled head, trying to get to grips with how to proceed in a dispute with a plumber who I feel did a bad job in my house...  

 

I found this forum and a brief browse inspired me to join.  I'll post up a couple of questions and see how we go from there.  

 

Thanks again for having me and see you in the forums.  

[cabbies crick]

Hi

 

We've got a dispute with a plumber who refitted our bathroom and did some other work. There are numerous instances of poor workmanship, which we can back up with opinions from other traders and in some cases info from manufacturers.

 

The plumber has been very dismissive of our complaints. He wanted his right of repair, but only proposed to put some of the work right, and even those proposals were bodge repairs. We felt this would leave us in a worse position, and so refused.

 

On another note, he told us he would have the work completed within a certain time frame, but he missed the deadline by around a month.

 

With have not paid anything yet. Initially he did not want payment until all matters were resolved. But recently he's been demanding payment and even adding late fees. Essentially, we're really stuck as to how to proceed. Do we:

 

1. Not pay / partially pay (for the elements we were happy with), and let him take us to court for the rest?
2. Pay the full amount under protest, and then pursue money back through the courts?

 

The problem with #2 is that our home insurance legal team have done financial checks and cannot take the case on because he doesn't show any obvious assets, isn't registered, etc. He has shown that he's happy to lie, and so we suspect if the decision were to go in our favour he would just lie and say he couldn't afford to pay. We've no idea how the enforcement side of things works.

 

On the other hand, would option #1 leave us in breach of contract for non-payment? Or would that not apply because he has already breached the contract through the poor workmanship and time delays? When does poor workmanship become breach of contract? What do we need to do to evidence this? And can we use the delayed completion to demonstrate breach of contract?

 

Any advice would be a massive help.

 

Many thanks to anyone taking the time to read this.

[cabbies crick]

Hi all

 

Please could anyone help me with a general question if possible? We might be looking to bring a case to the small claims court against a plumber due to the poor standard of work.

 

We've been speaking to the legal cover through our home insurance who have made some basic checks on his finances. They've said that as he doesn't own property and his company isn't registered with Companies House (he's a sole trader), he doesn't fulfil their/the insurer's criteria and as a result they can't help us take the case to court as they could not enforce payment.

 

However, whilst I can understand their position, what I wanted to know is... If we take him to the small claims court without their support and won, and he refused to pay, would it not be enforceable as he has no demonstrable assets? Or would the judge take into consideration his income/personal bank account/tools/van etc?

 

Whilst trying to sort matters with him directly, he has blatantly lied about some things. We fear that even if he did have assets, or money in a personal bank account, he would do whatever he could to move these or make them unavailable in some way. Do the courts/enforcers see through these kinds of things? Or, if he wants to "plead poverty" is that something quite easily achieved?

 

We're at our wits end trying to decide what to do! Any advice or pointers to stuff to read on the subject would be massively appreciated.

 

Many thanks

 

(PS - we noticed this evening that he has his put his UTR number on his estimates and invoices. As we've only just realised we've not yet told the legal firm, but will do so in the morning. Could this UTR number help in any way?)

[dx100uk]

3 threads merged.

 

[cabbies crick]

Hi @dx100uk

 

I do apologise - I thought I was doing the right thing posting those separately.  Sorry about that and thanks for merging. 

 

That being said, it's probably all a bit jumbled and confused having them merged.  So what chance would there be of deleting all three now and me writing a new more coherent single post?

 

Many thanks

[BankFodder]

I'm locking this thread and it would be a good idea if you start again more gently and more methodically and give us a chronology – and some values.

You really flooded us with generalities and we have no idea what you're banging on about