Letter Before Claim? Builder Claim Recovery Debt Owed for Labour & Snags/ Defect Work

[Thimbs]

Hi,

We have received an email notification of intent to go through small claims from our builder to recover debt owed. Looking for advise on how to proceed/ what evidence we should gather to support defending the claim. It does not state 'Letter Before Claim' and only has a small number of the elements normally included.

Should I go back to the claimant and ask if this is a 'Letter Before Claim', ask for missing information and then reply with a 'Reply Form' to support counterclaim?

We believe we had a new verbal quote/ agreement to complete 25% more scope, they believe it is a variation of the original quote, contract T&Cs, but have not provided a variance quote. They have also included snags/ defect work in the claim.

Thanks

[MIKE770]

Pre-Action Letters letter before claim has quite a few pages

[MIKE770]

does not sound a letter of claim just a treatogram? do not go back to them if not a claim letter, many builders hope you have not a clue , and back off eventually before it cost them monies near court stage.

[Thimbs]

Hi, Thanks for the advice.

We have asked them to meet with us on 5 occasions to discuss the invoice and they have refused. They have charged more than agreed to finish the job, with a portion remaining still to be complete, they have charged for snags/ rework needed because of defect installation. We have classed this as the final stage and therefore payment on completion, with a plan to retain 5% for the snags/ defects. We do not have an open quote with them, it was a verbal agreement so I don't believe the T&Cs apply. It also states in the previous quote/ contract that a variation quote would be provided, but we did not receive one, so again I don't believe their T&Cs apply.

We have never said we wouldn't pay, but we would pay when the work is complete as per the verbal agreement.
We have been charged a management fee, but no one has come to site to manage the carpenters
The carpenters have approached us for direction on some minor finishing details only.
We have asked for detailed drawing on multiple occasions and the person responsible for this has been to site on a number of occasions, completed £1000s technical drawings for us over the years and agreed that he would be the key contact for any queries the carpenters would have.
The scope, volume of installation and materials was agreed before the first phase started.

They have caused £7K damage to our house and not progressed the insurance claim for 6 months.

Would you just wait for the next threat or would you raise a counterclaim for what is being charged, defect work and the damaged window?

Thanks

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Dear Mr & Mrs x,

It is with regret, that Im writing to officially inform you that the contract between ourselves for the cladding work & subsequent variation to this contract is now cancelled from 21.00hours on Sunday 12th September 2021 due to paragraph 6 in our terms & conditions, which clearly states non payment of our invoice enacts our right to complete no further works until paid in full.

The invoice was issued on the 16th July 2021.
The invoice is currently 51 days overdue.

Please find below clause 6 in our terms & conditions.

6. Fees and Payment: We will invoice you by way of stage payments as the works progress and will notify you of the various stages in our Quotation.
We reserve the right to charge up front for preliminaries. These will be outlined in our Quotation where applicable.
The final 5% of the contract value will be invoiced once the works have been completed, signed off and any snags/defects have been rectified.
All invoices must be paid in full within 7 days from the date of invoice, without set- off, withholding or deduction, unless otherwise agreed in writing.
Unless otherwise agreed in writing, we are unable to accept any of our monies being withheld as retentions.
The contract price is exclusive of VAT, which will be charged at the prevailing rate as at the date of acceptance of our Quotation, unless the works are noted as being VAT exempt. Any variation in the rate of VAT or, where the works are VAT exempt, any imposition of VAT after acceptance of our Quotation, will be passed to you. Should the price of materials increase during the period between your acceptance of the Quotation and the commencement of the works, we will inform you of the increase and of any difference in the final fee.
Interest shall be paid on all overdue accounts from the date payment was due (as set out above) until actually made, at 4% per annum above the Bank of England base rate from time to time during the period in which interest is payable. Further, we may refuse to carry out any further works until such time as any outstanding stage payment has been paid and we shall not be held liable for any delays caused as a result.

I draw your attention to clause 14 of our terms & conditions which we’ve used to end the contract.

14. Our Cancellation: We reserve the right to cancel the Contract if you fail to make any payment on time as required under clause 6 or if you otherwise materially breach the Contract. If we cancel the Contract, we will confirm this in writing. If at the cancellation date we have carried out works or purchased materials that you have not yet paid for, we will invoice you for those sums and you will be required to make payment in accordance with clause 6.

You’ve clearly stated in previous email & text communications that you don’t intend on paying for work completed until it’s complete, which as the variation work cannot be completed at this time due to insufficient materials being available to us isn’t acceptable.

You have also questioned variation work completed, whilst directing our contractors to complete such work without authorisation from LH, without any detailed drawings amended to confirm the correct install.

The project planning to which you refer to as being poor, has been primarily directed by yourselves, spending thousands of pounds on detailed planning drawings to which the contract was based, has failed due to the plan being changed to suit the incorrect timber cladding being delivered in January, going against all advice from everyone involved from the planning drawings technician, to ALL contractors involved in the install.

We advised the Timber to be sent back and the correct timber cladding redelivered, this advice not being adhered to has resulted in ongoing issues relating to the material change throughout the whole cladding installation stage from start to near finish, compromising the preparation & sub frame work previously completed by LH to plan, trying to ensure a smooth orderly cladding install stage as quoted.

Larkinhomes has incurred costs over and above the ‘fixed’ quotation given to you, however, the quotation clearly stated the time allowance for the cladding work, we were flexible on costs as already outlined & agreed In Subsequent payments made by yourselves in your favour.

Unfortunately, whilst trying to explain the reasoning for the issues we faced at various onsite meetings between January through to July, your understanding of the issues (or lack of understanding) caused our meetings to become confused & contentious with details you didn’t understand being dismissed out of hand.

Coming to the final detailing of specific areas of the cladding has proved very difficult with a lack of direction resulting from the original plans being superseded by ‘adhoc’ decision making when a decision was requested for the finish to be confirmed. The contractors onsite provided a number of ways to complete sections around windows & window heads, with work required to show you the differences in the outcome, leading to a variation in costs taking this into consideration.

Therefore, with the non payment of our invoice we will now be filing a claim against yourselves through the small claims court, to recover the debt owed to us by yourselves.

I can confirm the amount we intend on recovering from you through the small claims court is £8,088.00 inc vat. (Eight thousand and eighty eight pounds) plus our court costs.

I’ve instructed the scaffolder to remove his scaffolding from your property, as we’ve terminated our contract for this project with him.
As a final, genuine attempt to avoid us pursuing this through the court, we will give you until 5pm on Friday 17th September 2021 to make payment in full of the outstanding invoice.