[Closed] Plumber damaged carpet in house now refusing to pay for repair/replacement!!!

Always seem to happen to you doesn't it...

I also managed to knock a couple of hundred quid of his price as he said he would do it off the books and not charge me the vat....

I'd say that's where you are out of luck....

Well you've saved the VAT and defrauded the tax man by doing it 'off the books' so I reckon you haven't a leg to stand on.

Use that couple of hundred quid to pay for the carpet.

By not doing it on the books he'll be avoiding income tax as well, so I'd have been looking for a hell of a lot more that £200 off.

Report him to the tax man.

surely it was the plumber who defrauded the tax man by saying he would do it off the books and cheaper???

no receipt, no proof he was there, you'll have to take it out of the money you saved by having it done on the side

surely it was the plumber who defrauded the tax man by saying he would do it off the books and cheaper???

you really do want your cake & to eat it don't you? It's people like you that stop me doing favours due to the comebacks, I regularly get asked to look at this or that in my job, which I used to be happy to do, for free, but in the past someone complained to my boss about the time it took for me to carry out this "favour" so now I don't bother. Luckily my boss saw it for what it was & wasn't to worried about it, but it could have been much worse.

You both got something out of it, time to bite the bullet & take it for what it is.

renton - Member
surely it was the plumber who defrauded the tax man by saying he would do it off the books and cheaper???

Might be worth getting this thread deleted.....

.... just in case they're watching you.

Yes but you were complicite in the arrangement. Dodgy ground if you were thinking of 'dobbing in' the plumber.

Nothing you can do unless you fancy small claims court

I do not understand myself why you are still using this agent - once again they have let you down.

nope, takes two to tango, you could and should be done as well, if he's getting done.

surely it was the plumber who defrauded the tax man by saying he would do it off the books and

So you said no to the deal then?

No thought not.

You can't have it both ways.

You have a new boiler installed and dont get a receipt!!!! is he gas safe registered if your renting property out dont you have to have all the paperwork for gas and stuff.

Father in Law messed up as he seems to have seen it - though could easily have missed it. You're relying on the honesty of the tradesman but seeing as you knew that he's happy to avoid VAT you could work out he might not be so honest. Maybe threaten to grass his VAT avoidance up?!

okay, so what would be your answer if i hadnt said anything about the vat ??

Tough luck, you win some, you loose some!

Under legitimate circumstance, fight it all the way, under those/yours circumstances, refer to my opening line.

postierich he has done all the relevant paperwork and he is gas safe registered.

Mike speaks the truth.

Well you've saved the VAT and defrauded the tax man by doing it 'off the books' so I reckon you haven't a leg to stand on.

Renton

If the plumber is not going to 'play' you really have to put this down to experience. Is it really worth escalating the dispute over a bit of carpet?

no receipt?
Then how are you going to claim for the boiler to offset against the income from the rent, in order to minimise the tax you are paying..
You are declaring the income, aren't you?

Its so easy to knock a flame gun over, theyre still hot even when switched off and easily melt the cheaper carpets.

At least he didnt burn the house down, some plumbers have.

Oh and get rid of what seems to be a totally useless agent.

vinnyeh............ yes i am thanks

[img] [/img]

dazz

Couldn't agree more, likewise

OTTOMH FIL saw it?...and authorised it by agency?

As above tho, £200 off, not worth the hassle of suing IMO.

hold up dazz it wasnt like it was the cheapest quote i got.

he said the only way he could do it cheaper was to do it off the books.

I still paid this chap 2k and he cant even have the professional decency to sort out his mistake............

He didnt even contact me to tell me what had happened

If you had a minor piece of damaged carpet, the easiest and best way to get it repaired is to find a piece that isn't used and cut a square out the exact same size and replace it. Best if you get some double sided tape and glue them both to each other, if done tidily then it would be just fine. Carpets are glued together over big runs all the time, a small square being repaired this way isn't the greatest sin in the world.

Get some decent double sided carpet tape, get it taped down together and tidy up threads that are hanging out, it'll all be good.

renton - Member
He didnt even contact me to tell me what had happened

He told your dad though?

postierich he has done all the relevant paperwork and he is gas safe registered.

then you have a piece of paper to prove he has been in the property, there is no payment from you on his books/business account. tell him you will shop him to HMRC as he instigated the cash payment not you.

you hold all the cards, now play them.

if it was going to be £2200 Inc VAT it should have been about £1834 if he "saved" you the VAT. Sounds like he's done you up like a kipper I'm afraid.

Perhaps you could sue your father-in-law, just sue everyone.

smell_it................ I dont want to sue anyone, would just like my carpet put back to how it was before he damaged it !!

Renton it won't be happening, get the bit of carpet stuck down and get your next lot of tenants in. Then we can hear how bad your next load of problems are!

Put a mat/plant pot/umbrella stand/bin/stuffed dead pet over it.

you pay cash then you have no comeback.

Learn from it and move on.

I also managed to knock a couple of hundred quid of his price as he said he would do it off the books and not charge me the vat....

I can't believe you're the same guy who complained that your tenants had "lied" to you about not being smokers - iirc someone saw them smoking outside.

.

there is no payment from you on his books/business account. tell him you will shop him to HMRC as he instigated the cash payment not you.

you hold all the cards, now play them.

How does he hold all the cards ? It seems to me that the plumber can now demand that renton pays him.

He's already paid the plumber ernie but wants money back to pay for the damaged carpet.

I like this thread, it makes people who live in a black-and-white world confused.

He's already paid the plumber ernie

What proof has he got ?

These plumbers are really stupid so I guess they they are running a one off business only ...

Anyway you have forgotten something when dealing with all these zombies ...

(Advertisement mode - the one with a macho deep voice)
[b]
Benelli M4 shotgun! Don't leave home without it! [/b]

🙄

What proof has he got ?

So basically renton doesn't have a leg to stand on because he has no proof that he's paid the plumber. That's not quite what I call 'holding all the cards'.

I'm sure the plumber will forget about renton paying him, if renton drops any legal action against him.

suck it up big man...

as said before... bit of double sided and jobs a good'un.

ok, so you won't use or recommend the geezer, but at the same time you aren't 100% kosher, are you....

you pay cash then you have no comeback.

Load of rubbish!

The sale of goods act says something about not having any come-back legally if you have agreed to avoid tax.
Who arranged the plumber? If it was the agency then you should be sorting it out with them, the plumber is a third party.

Patching is a perfectly good way of repairing an otherwise good damaged carpet. It just wasn't finished properly; there should be sticky tape underneath holding it down.

This is the kind of un-professional penny-pinching that gets landlords a bad name. There's nothing you can do so move on, learn from it and do the job properly next time. Going to court would cost you a fortune with no guarantee of winning anything.

Firstly, I'll say that I think some are being overly harsh on Renton (not for the first time), but hey, thats flavour of the month round here at the moment ;-).

Next time I'd get a receipt and go through the books for all work on a rental property - dont forget you can deduct the cost of work from your annual tax return / capital gains tax when you sell (although IIRC you're with the forces, so you may be moving back in as your 'primary residence)

House insurance and get them to counter claim off him.

Crikey. You've no chance of ever renting that flat out again with a carpet in that state. Must be awful for you. Poor thing. 🙄

There. You've had the sympathy now get over it man.

Sounds like your not exactly cut-out for landlording.
A bit like that carpet then. 🙂

The plumber has only done it off the books if he doesn't declare the income, simply saying he'll not charge VAT doesn't make it so.
Loads of businesses advertise 'no VAT' - it doesn't mean HRMC aren't getting their 20%

I'm sure that if you tried to report him, you'd find he had indeed 'booked' the job and also issued an invoice

As others have said, fix it yourself and move on and if you don't trust someone else to sign off work you've had done, do it yourself next time

Am I the only one that thinks it looks like cheap office carpet and could probably be replaced for £50-100? Only viewing on my phone mind you.

Your father in law signed the job off, they had informed him of the problem, he had the opportunity to do something about it at the time, perhaps you need to sue him to get your carpet fixed?

Nice point jota180. They get to stay legal but put off anyone who tries to make a claim against them as they think they have done something dodgy. Another trick learned

In rentons defence re: signing off the work - isn't he in the forces?

Lot of love for the op on this thread!! To be fair the repair doesnt look that bad. I'd be chuffed to be fair that he didn't burn the ****in house down looking at the burn mark 😯

Nice point jota180. They get to stay legal but put off anyone who tries to make a claim against them as they think they have done something dodgy. Another trick learned

Not necessarily, no
eg the local Ford main dealer was doing a similar deal recently, it's just a way of giving a discount that grabs attention
but who knows what the plumber meant? Or will say he meant if confronted

So you put an expense you could have used to reduce your own tax liability through 'off the books'?

Now when you do your tax return you'll be paying income tax on £1800 of rental income you didn't have to.

Genius.

And patching a carpet like that is fine. The whole thing would probably only cost £70 to replace anyway. Get it done yourself and offset the cost against rental income - it'll cost you nothing.

The plumber would have to put this through the books in some sort of way. Unless you paid cash upfront and he then went to his local supplier and paid cash for the boiler?

I'm guessing that he would have received a VAT invoice from his supplier. He probably did a hickey VAT invoice to you (Which you wouldn't receive), for the boiler only.

The labour part of the job would have been free of VAT?

I think the carpet is the least of your problems. What happens if the boiler packs up in 6 months. No invoice, no proof of purchase, what about the warranty? Your contract is with the supplier (The plumber) and based on your recent experiences, i can't see him being that helpful!

Lol! In keeping with the (not a) lot of love for the OP: OP, accept your role in this matter and make good the existing repair. Learn from the experience about the dangers of doing something on the cheap.

However, if you want to make someone else pay, put the easily-confused father-in-law into care out of spite. Maliceously report the plumber for issuing gas certificates for cash. When the next tenants arrive, omit to mention the repair on the house inventory and when they leave, wickedly claim they did it and keep their deposit. 😛

Why don't you ask your commanding officer to help out, obviously he knows all about this anyway?
I really hope that you're not doing anything responsible in the RAF judging by your posts on here.

Is there any point in offering advice to someone who on a public forum makes a statement saying that he's agreed a deal with a tradesman to evade VAT and almost certainly income tax. 🙂

Of course he could ask to get the thread deleted but then the mods will also be complicit.

As above, I think the plumber just used the 'no vat' thing as a way to get the job and has probably put the whole thing through his books anyway.

I think you've every right to ask for some funds towards a carpet repair.

If he stated he was going 'off the books' that might mean he's doing outside his company books, not necessarily outside Tax regulations. Does he have a boss??

Clearly you're not going to recommend him to anyone, indeed you'll encourage people to avoid his work; he might need to be reminded of this before he makes his decision. A contribution towards a repair might be appropriate.

Oh god no, I'm too pretty to go to prison!

It's an accident, so simply claim on your household buildings insurance. One call, new carpet, easy.

That is what it is there for, you paid your premium for the product, now use it.

This is assuming you have told the insurer the house is rented and you are paying landlord insurance rates. Otherwise you don't have insurance.

It's interesting that someone can fail to see the contradiction around complaining about others shafting them while being quite happy to shaft(avoiding tax in this instance) in return. I wonder if Renton complains about bankers bonuses, tax dodgers, high utility prices, rising insurance costs, etc.

Classic it's the tenant/agent/plumber, delete as applicable, and I'm the only ok one here.

I can't believe that the op is in the armed forces as some state.

Imagine the contradiction in having one of those gold plated pension early retirement high wage jobs, paid for by the tax payer, and then probably mumbling somewhere else about cutbacks and redundancies because theres not enough tax money floating about to sustain it, the OP is a tax dodger himself.

For any other civil servant, that should be sackable. Why isn't someone reporting the OP anyway on the strength of this thread. His tax dodging is simply taking the pi££ out of all of us here, when he appears to be the main beneficiary of our legitimate taxes.

well from a central heating installer perspective... yours fessed up to the damage and said he'd made good, your representaive agreed that it was okay when the work was completed.
in reality he admitted damaging the floor covering, made a repair that your representative agreed was okay..
your not going to get any change from that..
he said he'd do it cheaper if you didnt have to pay VAT.. you paid x -£200. you have no idea what his relationship with his tax office is. you are in no place to comment on his financial affairs. you have no idea of his finacial liabilities on yours or any other contract.
you no doubt have a reciept which shows a total price paid.. nothing wrong with that.
no VAT is a common sales pitch used by tradesmen ( whom everyone assumes are on the fiddle) and car sales men and furniture sales men every purchaser likes the idea of getting something cheap something for nothing and you sucummed to this base instinct

a further issue is you paid over the odds even with 200 quid off.. and than take issue with the work you were happy/ encouraged to be done cheaply and then expect marks and spencer like quality..

Is there any point in offering advice to someone who on a public forum makes a statement saying that he's agreed a deal with a tradesman to evade VAT and almost certainly income tax.

TBH the inclusion in a separate and dedicated paragraph of :

[i]"I also managed to knock a couple of hundred quid of his price as he said he would do it off the books and not charge me the vat...."[/i]

did make me wonder whether is was a deliberate bait and the OP was trolling. It just seemed a bit too obvious for me.

But then I always get suspicious that renton is trolling when he expresses the "you couldn't make it up" overreactions concerning his rented house issues.

BTW, as project remarks, the accident is easily done, specially by an inexperienced apprentice who accidentally knocks something over in a small space crowded with tools, although also easily done by a highly skilled tradesmen, you just have less accidents with experience. IMO it is no reflection on the skills of the plumber.

No comeback. Carpet gopping anyway so just change it but otherwise the patch redone will be ok.

At the time (middle of december) he told my father in law that his apprentice had accidently knocked his burner over on the carpet but they had sorted it out, so my father in law said ok and paid up.

I think it is quite a good repair and a sensible solution. Spend a bit of time tidying it up, as suggested above and carry on.

If you had burnt it yourself what would you have done? New carpet or clever repair?

Thanks for all the replies, im reading them sat in the departure lounge on my way to afghanistan.......

Plumber didn't actually tell me it was Vat free he simply said off the books which I presumed he meant it would got through his vat books.

I've shown my father in law the photos and he said he wasnt shown that repair. He was told the lad had sorted it .

My problem lies with the fact that je didnt have the courtesy to call me and tell me what had happened first.

Thanks for all the kind replies though .
I do hold a responsible job in the raf thanks, hence why I'm off to Afghanistan again.

I have all the correct insurances for the property to thanks

I wondet if the responses would have been the same if i.hadn't mentioned the off the books bit ?

Best of luck in Afghanistan.

I would Just claim on the insurance, and it's all sorted.

I wondet if the responses would have been the same if i.hadn't mentioned the off the books bit ?

I doubt it.

And I'm surprised if you are surprised that it made a difference.

My problem lies with the fact that je didnt have the courtesy to call me and tell me what had happened first.

OP now wants sympathy by telling us he`s off to Afghanistan

Edric 64.
I am not after your sympathy at all chap, i dont know you so why should I ?

Like i said thanks for the replies everyone, I wonder if you lot would be pee;d off if it had happened to you.?
Or would like most of you are saying would you just claim on your insurance or pay for it to be repaired yourselves.

I think not.

Father in law was put in charge of over seeing the job, plumber reported incident, didn't try to cover up just did a shonky repair. F.I.L. surely should have checked the repair before paying. I have learn't that it's not worth getting jobs done on the side cos when they go wrong you have little or no comeback. Bollock F.I.L. for not doing his job properly and don't use him again he is obviously incompetant. Or claim from F.I.L.