N181 form: Do I need a witness?

[everest_dan]

Hello,

I am the claimant in a £23k claim for money. It relates to internal and landscaping building work.

I have paid according to a payment schedule which is independent of work stages. The builder has completed the internal parts of the project but has not completed the landscaping works. Despite numerous attempts over many months to get the defendant to finish the work, he is still dragging his feet.

The value of the work completed is less than the amount of money I paid. And so I have taken the defendant to court for the difference: £23k.

In his written defence, the defendant claims that the contract has been completed. I'm not sure why he wrote this. It's bonkers to me. It's clear to see that many items within our JCT contract have not been completed ie. the external works.

And here comes my question: do I need an expert witness, eg. a surveyor, to state that the external works have not been completed? Surely some photos from me would be evidence enough? This is really elementary stuff but I don't want to make a blunder here.

Many thanks!

[R0b]

It's difficult to say with 100% conviction whether you need to hire an expert or not but that said, it is not uncommon for parties to hire an expert witness where there is a building works dispute. Experts are usually required when it comes to issues around defects, their impact, what repairs may be needed and cost of remediation. However, an expert could be avoided by obtaining 3 quotes from landscaping companies and then taking the average from those 3 quotes as the basis for cost of repair/completion.

If this is plainly about whether or not the work has or has not been completed then it may be as straightforward as you taking photographs of the current state of the works and comparing that against what the contract said would be done. It is not always necessary to hire an expert but for obvious reasons, they can be useful where you need a technical opinion.

Take for example, if the contract stipulated that the contractor would landscape the garden including new law, planting of trees long one side of the garden and build a retaining wall but all the contractor has done is dig over the garden soil and remove old patio then I think it would be plainly obvious that the contractor hasn't met the requirements of the contract (assuming that could be proven by photographic evidence).

Whenever you take photos, try to ensure there is a timestamp on the photograph as evidence of when it was taken.

[everest_dan]

Many thanks for the helpful response