Do I know where hell is? Hell is in hello

Here's a precis of what happened to us:

We and the cowboy builder lived in a village in SE Essex about a mile apart.

At this point in time I am not going to name any names. The reason for this is that although it has been decided in court last week that he is officially a cowboy builder ( one who does incomplete and defective work), we have received death threats directly and indirectly, have had to move to the other end of the country ( the court has protected our address) and certainly do not at this time want to antagonize the situation. We also have the option of appeal against the judgement as we won every point of law, and if it had not been for major mistakes by our legal team and expert witness would have won a financial judgement against him.

2003 - We approached a local jobbing builder who had done some excellent work for us before to give us a quote to build a 6 x 4 metre single storey extension for a kitchen at the rear of our house. He understood our requirements and produced a written quote of nearly £15,000 and a kitchen plan from 'Howdens' showing the proposed layout.

We decided we couldn't really afford the extension at that time, however we employed him to convert our old garage into an office / annexe for £10000. He subsequently did the work over that summer to a high standard.

2004 - In the spring our builder died of a heart attack aged 38 (god rest his soul)

Throughout 2004 business was good and we saved enough money to think about the kitchen extension again.

Hello!
In the late summer of 2004 my wife was discussing with friends the proposed extension at the school gate when the cowboy builders wife who was listening (whose child incidently was in the same class at the school) said that her husband would be interested in quoting for the work. I'd seen his vans around the area and had no reason to think he was not capable of the work. A couple of weeks later we were suddenly invited to their wedding.

At his wedding I spoke to the cowboy builder for the first time. He brought up the subject of our extension and introduced me to some people he said could sort out the design and planning for the building.

Towards the end of October we were getting married ourselves and felt obliged to invite the cowboy and his family to our wedding. Immediately after our wedding the cowboy builders wife suggested that we all go on a joint honeymoon with the children for Christmas at the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas.

We agreed and come Christmas off we went. Although the holiday was enjoyable and we got to know them better, we didn't spend that much time together as my wife was three months pregnant and they didn't really share the same interests as ourselves. The honeymoon was also marred by the Boxing Day tsunami which closed all the beaches and left everyone feeling scared.

When we did meet up, usually for evening dinner, it was generally a pleasant affair during which both The Cowboy and his wife would usually bring up the subject of the proposed extension. Whilst in the Bahamas The Cowboy told me that aside from being a successful builder he was also a very large property developer with over thirty houses in his portfolio. I had no reason to doubt him.

It was during this vacation that the Cowboy explained to me they had nine full time employees and only did ‘quality work’. The Cowboy cited a number of large contracts he said he had completed. The cowboy informed me that he only employed skilled workers and that he even paid his labourers £100 per day. Because of my wife’s pregnancy and not knowing if or when our plans would be accepted, we did not discuss start dates at this time, only his availability sometime in the spring. This is when he first mentioned that we were looking at up to six weeks to complete a project of this nature.

On the face of it he appeared capable of completing the works we required when we needed him in the timescales involved, and we were left with the impression that the builder was capable and could complete the works in the six week timescale he had suggested.

Next post - How we employed a cowboy builder