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

Father in law couldnt get into the hoise to look as tenant didn't know him. Chap told father in law on doorstep what had happened and what had been done. As I said f I l was quite shocked when I showed him the photos and has actually offered to pay for a new carpet but why should he ? He wasn't the one that did the damage.

I just say again - what are you paying the agents for? their reccomended plumber, they should be organising repair and they should be checking not FIL.

TJ is right - the agent should have sorted all of this for you. Are you still with Oulsnam? They really are a terrible agent - get rid of them at the first opportunity.

I've quoted for work with agents before. I'm pretty certain they wouldn't let my lads get away with that. I suggest you change agents

Cutting the carpet and patching it like that is not acceptable, unless the customer agreed upfront
Accidents happen, that's why the installer has PLI
I think you need to stop looking at this house as a home owner, and start treating it as a business.

Renton - tbh its not the first time you've come across as a bit of a knob, just glue up the carpet and move on

b r........

I dont feel as though I am coming across as a knob to be fair.

At the end of the day this workman damaged my property and instead of calling me and letting me know he has cut a piece out of another carpet and tried to bodge it, so now I have 2 carpets that need repairing/replacing.

instead of contacting me he has tried to bodge it and then informed my father in law that here had been a problem but he had sorted it out, possibly knowing that my FIL couldnt gain access to the property to see.

I dont feel that its a problem how I paid and I feel its more of a problem that he is refusing to put right what he damaged in the first place.

cant see why that makes me a knob but thanks very much for your input and Im sure that you and the rest who have said suck it up would not be feeling the same if it had happened to you.

I imagine the replies would have been different if it wasn't "off the books" but unfortunately that therein lies your problem. If you start doing things through different channels you have to be willing to accept potential consequences when things go wrong. When I saw the first pic I didn't think there was anything wrong! I think he's made some effort to repair it, if you're not happy claim off your household insurance, otherwise I think you're fighting a loosing battle.

Good luck though.

"bodge" - havvun't several professionals said it's an OK repair once taped down?

Also he gave FIL opportunity to advise you of the problem and inspect it.

cynic=al

yes that part can be repaired but what about the carpet he took that piece from ????

would you accept a repair to a carpet that had only been down about a year and had loads of life left??

But you stated that misssing carpet area is in a cupboard? in which case I can't see a problem with that personally.

yes it is in a cupboard but it still has a piece missing from it.

I can see a problem with that as it didnt have one beforehand!!

At the end of the day this workman damaged my property and instead of calling me and letting me know he has cut a piece out of another carpet and tried to bodge it

But you appointed your FIL as your agent, why would the plumber liaise with you?

The carpet is awful and should be burned...there problem solved!

This has been brilliant, what a great thread. Feel sorry for you renton, but you made your bed.

Rangers going bust for not paying tax yet you happily collude to defraud the taxman, ok plenty do, but not best to announce it on here.

Cut the rest out the cupboard and put something else down. If you not living there and renting out, so what?

Get over it and pay VAT next time, you might get more sympathy.

my FIL only went down to hand over the cash not to check the work. I wanted to pay by credit card but the plumber refused??

How many threads have you had on issues around Buy to let?

I really don't think its for you....

I would not have accepted CC if I had burnt your carpet and bumped the VATman either.

renton - Member
my FIL only went down to hand over the cash not to check the work. I wanted to pay by credit card but the plumber refused??

So who was going to check the work? Why pay for something that was not given the once over by someone?

If you pay by CC he would have to pay VAT. You agreed to pay cash and colluded in the defauding of the Exchequer. A far more open and shut case than Arry.

Flange I agree wholeheartedly in that I dont think its for me.

Im fed up with it already but cant sell it as prices have hit rock bottom

WE agreed the price and then I said I wanted to pay for it by card after he had done it and he wouldnt accept that and said it was cash or nothing.

Plumbe refused as he would have had to pay a % which since you were doing it "off the books" wouldn't have made sense to him. I appreciate the carpet sized cupboard hole wasn't there before but he's made the effort. your FIL is partly to blame as he should've told you ASAP and potentially thought about it! he's a bit of a plum as well. AS previously said it's a rented house, the carpet is rank, he's try to fix it and it was all cash in hand. accept it was an error on both parts and move on.

WE agreed the price and then I said I wanted to pay for it by card after he had done it and he wouldnt accept that and said it was cash or nothing.

But you already knew he was doing it off the books to save you money, and make a little extra for himself. So there was no way he was going to accept anything other than cash.

Best of luck in Afghanistan.

Watch out for carpet bombers.

Very good Cougar............ 🙄

I wanted to pay for it by card after he had done it and he wouldnt accept that and said it was cash or nothing.

Well, obviously. If you're going to evade tax you don't leave a transaction on your bank statement that can't be matched to an invoice.

Renton, i feel your pain but if i pay a tradesman to do a job and he knocks the VAT price off the job then unfortunataly you have no real comebacks. Unless the guy is an aquantance and u can talk to him face to face i think its just one of those things you have to take on the chin.

If you paid full whack and have all the documentation then its game on with the plumber.

Good luck with afghan mate. Keep the heed dow.

If it was me, I'd be making the agent's life a screaming misery for the situation getting to the point where I had to take care of organising a plumber in the first place. It seems like most of the problems in the ongoing saga that is Renton:the Rental Years end up becoming ridiculously convoluted because you're having to pay an agent and do their job for them. It sounds like your number one job when you get back home from your current tour, after you've kissed the wife, is sort out a new agent for your property.

As for the carpet - it's no big deal, the patch will be almost invisible and nobody's going to be put off renting your place because of it. If you ever move back in, you'll be changing it anyway.

Hope you make it through your tour with body and mind intact.

Keep the heed dow.

is this some sort of play on words? if it is, it's good..... 🙂

just claim off of his liability Insurance - the details of which should have been logged witht he lettingagent when he went on their books... Doesnt matter if it was on or off the books.

if i pay a tradesman to do a job and he knocks the VAT price off the job then unfortunataly you have no real comebacks

I don't see how this is in any way your / the OP's problem. You employ a tradesman to do work, he does the work and then presents you with a bill, which you then pay if you're happy with the work. I don't see how you can be in any way responsible for how he processes that payment; whether he chooses to declare it to the taxman, or not, is wholly down to the tradesman.

This whole "you didn't pay tax so you've no comebacks" is nonsense as far as I can tell; you paid whatever price you agreed to pay, if the tradesman is fiddling the books then that's his lookout.

What I'm not clear on is where the FiL fits into all this. Is he your representative in any sort of official capacity? It seems odd that one minute he's signing off work, and the next he's not even allowed in the house. If I'd hired a tradesman and was told that they'd caused damage, I'd want it inspecting before any money changed hands; I'm perplexed as to why this wasn't done. Presumably the OP was out of the country, but still, either the FiL is able to inspect the work and sign it off, or he isn't.

As far as "what can I do" goes, I can see a few options.

1) ignore it and hope the new tenants don't mind.

2) suck it up and have the carpet repaired / replaced yourself.

3) claim on the house insurance.

4) seek redress via the small claims court.

Others have suggested that it's possible to repair the damage by patching; whilst this may be true, it doesn't appear that this has been done to an acceptable standard in this case. I certainly wouldn't be happy with that as a 'fix', but then, I wouldn't have signed off the work until I'd inspected it either.

Good luck.

(ObDisclaimer, I am not a lawyer)

Small claims court .. jeepers think of the cost of wasting your time doing that for a small amount of hideous brown carpet 😉

Cougar, the fil fits in like this.......

I got a call from the letting agent saying the tenant had called and told them the boiler had stopped working, letting agent arranged for plumber (same plumber that done the gas safety check) to go and have a look at the boiler. I heard nothing back so contacted the plumber direct who told me x part had broke and possibly y part too but until x part was replaced at £lots he couldnt tell. he then said that i was better off getting a new boiler.

WE haggled on a price and come to £2200 which I didnt want to pay sop he said he could do it for £2000 off the books which I said ok to and was he happy with card if i covered the % charge he would inncur. He said "no" cash only.

We didnt have that kind of folding availbile in such a short space of time but my FIL did and agreed to pay for it which he did, he just didnt inspect it.

Not going to go through small claims as like people have said its not worth it

Right. So your FiL paid because he could and has nothing else to do with it.

The agent 'found' the plumber, then you intervened directly; who's the contract between then? You and the plumber, or the agency and the plumber? Presumably you, as you commissioned the work?

If nothing else, I think what you need to take from this is, a) your agent is worthless and b) it's always worth getting a second opinion.

I heard nothing back so contacted the plumber direct who told me .....

It seems strange that your first reaction appears to have been to call the plumber and not letting agent. Why didn't you call letting agent ? Perhaps they were waiting for the plumber to get back to them ? And if you had called them saying that you needed to know what was happening, then they might have chased him up.

You didn't give them an opportunity to do that, and decided instead to bypass the letting agent and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It's all fine and well to moan about other people not doing things as they should be done, but perhaps you should also accept some responsibility when you decide to ignore accepted procedures.

sorry ernie I didnt explain that bit clear enough.

I hadnt head anything back from agent or plumber and as it was the cold spell we had in december and my tenants had no heating i chased the agent who told me who the plmber was and they suggested i contact him direct to stop any crossed wires when it come to explaining what was wrong with the boiler.

So I did

hope this helps

I still don;t understand why you're paying cash when you could offset the cost against your tax liability on the rental income?

Not going to go through small claims as like people have said its not worth it

Fair enough renton, but I would have said "no, you sort it out". I presume that you didn't pop down to the builders merchant to get some gear for the plumber, so I don't know why you were doing the letting agents job for him/her.

....it was the cold spell we had in december and my tenants had no heating i chased the agent

Why weren't your tenants chasing the agent - why did you get involved ?

No disrespect renton, and I mean that, but I get the impression that you get a bit stressed out and worked up over stuff. I reckon you should relax and stand back a bit. IMO.

Perhaps the agents suggested that you contact the plumber yourself because they see you as a stressed out person who needs immediate answers ? Just a thought.

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