Builder destroys house over payment dispute

Builder destroys house over payment dispute

Introduction

In this construction nightmare a man hired a builder to refurbish the £540,000 house he had just bought.

He wanted a new two storey extension like a lot of people with growing families.

He refused (rightly or wrongly, we don’t have the information) to pay an additional £3,500 and so the builder destroyed his house while he was away on holiday.

The Client was having a dispute over the quality of the works and also over payment but did not expect the builder to lash out like this.

The house in the Stoneygate region of Leicester was badly damaged by the builder who removed materials from the house before damaging the property extensively.

The public pavement outside of the house was also damaged so that will have to be paid for.

What happens now ?

This probably is technically not criminal damage because the damage happened during the course of the construction project. For example, the police wont care if a builder demolishes the wrong rear wall during the course of the project so why should they get involved now. Its a civil case between the Client and his contractor.

The builder in question will no doubt go out of business and walk away. We are assuming the builder is a LTD company.

Hopefully, the client has home insurance and perhaps can claim off the builders insurance.

In any event this is crazy.

Our comment on this example is how did this happen. There must be more to the case than just an argument over a couple of thousand pounds. We await to see what happens.

Worst case scenario, the Client can claim off his insurance company and hire another business to complete the works. Provided he has insurance and has told his insurance company that he was having works completed.