My wife & I have had a terrible experience in Birmingham with a nasty but clever cowboy builder, who I probably can't name for legal reasons - although I would very much like to as a warning to other potential victims.
We hired him for a kitchen refit in early August 2007. He broke down the job into small units & submitted separate estimates for each job. Despite initially promising to finish everything by the end of August by then only 1 estimate had been completed, which we paid for.
After that he averaged 2.4 man-hours per day, while we were trying to use a dangerous unhealthy worksite as a kitchen. When talking to him didn't work, on September 20th we requested in writing that all the work should be finished by October 26th. We repeated this later making "time of the essence".
Nothing changed & on October 13th he engineered an argument over payment as an excuse to walk off the job. At 7pm on a Saturday while we were trying to eat our dinner he aggressively demanded immediate payment of 10 invoices / charges he had submitted the evening before. He had just finished work on some of them, 1 was not finished, & 2 were where estimates had not been signed as the price had not been agreed.
I pointed out we couldn't sort it out straight away as we were trying to have our dinner, & said we would sort out payment when he returned on Monday. He refused & said until he had cleared funds for all his invoices he would be doing no more work.
Over the next week in correspondance we posted cheques for 5 invoices, he withdrew 2, leaving 3 in dispute.
On our return from holiday in early November we found a legal claim against us for the 3 invoices. We responded with a defence & counterclaim for the signed etimates which he was refusing to fulfill, & the extra cost to us of having to find alternative tradesmen to finish the work & for damage he had caused to our original Victorian floorboards.
When the builder's evidence arrived 6 days before the Hearing it was full of forgeries & fabrications. A copy of my signature had been added to the 2 estimates where we didn't agree the price, my signature had been removed on other estimates, estimates we had never seen with a copy of my signature on them appeared, & letters which he had never sent had been written, including a "Terms of Commencement" with a copy of my signature added. It was a comprehensive fit-up job.
These "Terms of Commencement" included payment terms where he stated that work on a new estimate would not commence until invoices for previous estimates had been paid in full. We then understood why he had insisted on separate estimates.
Whenever he submitted an estimate, if we agreed it we would sign it, photocopy it & return the original to him. We had unsigned originals of the estimates we didn't agree. We had copies of estimates containing his & my signature for work he had not done.
We were confidant therefore that because he could not produce original documents with my signature on them for these forgeries that we could prove that our documents were genuine & his were faked.
However in Court he alleged that - at least for the disputed invoices - I had given him photocopies of the estimates & kept the originals. The Judge bought his story hook line & sinker & ruled against us on all counts! This guy is a very good talker & apparently presented his case better than us - we expect he's done this before. He had also told is his Dad is a retired Magistrate, so we wonder if strings have been pulled - it now appears we never had a chance.
We did everything we thought we could to verify in writing everything that happened. We took digital photographs of all the work done every day. We kept a record of dates & times of exactly who attended & what they did. We kept a record of conversations & copies of all correspondance.
We kept copies of all signed estimates, we had unsigned originals of estimates we did not sign which he claims we did.
Despite this he was able to produce blatant forgeries, present them in Court as evidence, convince the Judge that they were genuine & use them to extort money from us.
What more could we have done? What's to stop clever psychos like this making up any document they like to rip off innocent ordinary people like us? We have been left feeling violated, angry, shocked & badly let down by a legal system we thought we could trust. We are looking at the appeals process but if 1 Judge has already ruled against us how do we know another won't also? This guy has been given a blank cheque to extort money from anyone he likes.
We thought we had done all we could to protect ourselves. but we clearly hadn't. If anyone can advise what we could have done differently we would be very grateful, & it would help anyone else who finds themsleves in the same predicament.
"Art is an Enemy" - Roger Taylor
We hired him for a kitchen refit in early August 2007. He broke down the job into small units & submitted separate estimates for each job. Despite initially promising to finish everything by the end of August by then only 1 estimate had been completed, which we paid for.
After that he averaged 2.4 man-hours per day, while we were trying to use a dangerous unhealthy worksite as a kitchen. When talking to him didn't work, on September 20th we requested in writing that all the work should be finished by October 26th. We repeated this later making "time of the essence".
Nothing changed & on October 13th he engineered an argument over payment as an excuse to walk off the job. At 7pm on a Saturday while we were trying to eat our dinner he aggressively demanded immediate payment of 10 invoices / charges he had submitted the evening before. He had just finished work on some of them, 1 was not finished, & 2 were where estimates had not been signed as the price had not been agreed.
I pointed out we couldn't sort it out straight away as we were trying to have our dinner, & said we would sort out payment when he returned on Monday. He refused & said until he had cleared funds for all his invoices he would be doing no more work.
Over the next week in correspondance we posted cheques for 5 invoices, he withdrew 2, leaving 3 in dispute.
On our return from holiday in early November we found a legal claim against us for the 3 invoices. We responded with a defence & counterclaim for the signed etimates which he was refusing to fulfill, & the extra cost to us of having to find alternative tradesmen to finish the work & for damage he had caused to our original Victorian floorboards.
When the builder's evidence arrived 6 days before the Hearing it was full of forgeries & fabrications. A copy of my signature had been added to the 2 estimates where we didn't agree the price, my signature had been removed on other estimates, estimates we had never seen with a copy of my signature on them appeared, & letters which he had never sent had been written, including a "Terms of Commencement" with a copy of my signature added. It was a comprehensive fit-up job.
These "Terms of Commencement" included payment terms where he stated that work on a new estimate would not commence until invoices for previous estimates had been paid in full. We then understood why he had insisted on separate estimates.
Whenever he submitted an estimate, if we agreed it we would sign it, photocopy it & return the original to him. We had unsigned originals of the estimates we didn't agree. We had copies of estimates containing his & my signature for work he had not done.
We were confidant therefore that because he could not produce original documents with my signature on them for these forgeries that we could prove that our documents were genuine & his were faked.
However in Court he alleged that - at least for the disputed invoices - I had given him photocopies of the estimates & kept the originals. The Judge bought his story hook line & sinker & ruled against us on all counts! This guy is a very good talker & apparently presented his case better than us - we expect he's done this before. He had also told is his Dad is a retired Magistrate, so we wonder if strings have been pulled - it now appears we never had a chance.
We did everything we thought we could to verify in writing everything that happened. We took digital photographs of all the work done every day. We kept a record of dates & times of exactly who attended & what they did. We kept a record of conversations & copies of all correspondance.
We kept copies of all signed estimates, we had unsigned originals of estimates we did not sign which he claims we did.
Despite this he was able to produce blatant forgeries, present them in Court as evidence, convince the Judge that they were genuine & use them to extort money from us.
What more could we have done? What's to stop clever psychos like this making up any document they like to rip off innocent ordinary people like us? We have been left feeling violated, angry, shocked & badly let down by a legal system we thought we could trust. We are looking at the appeals process but if 1 Judge has already ruled against us how do we know another won't also? This guy has been given a blank cheque to extort money from anyone he likes.
We thought we had done all we could to protect ourselves. but we clearly hadn't. If anyone can advise what we could have done differently we would be very grateful, & it would help anyone else who finds themsleves in the same predicament.
"Art is an Enemy" - Roger Taylor
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