PLUMBER’S SURPRISE BILL BOMBSHELL
IHAVEN’T written any rogue trader horror stories for a while and as soon as Mary made contact with me this week I knew it was a story that I wanted to pursue.
Mary, 67, called in a local ‘handyman’ to fix a leak under her sink and to look at her front door as it was difficult to close.
The handyman came out to her property to inspect what needed to be done.
After his inspection, he said it was an easy job and that he could deal with both the leak and the front door issue the next day. As promised he came out the next day with another young man to do the work.
After starting the work the handyman informed Mary that there was a much bigger problem with the plumbing. He explained that he had fixed the leak but that the other plumbing issues needed to be dealt with.
He also said that after inspecting the plumbing around the house he had noticed many other major issues which would need urgent attention.
The handyman then explained that he was about to start a very big job for the local council.
However, he stressed that he really wanted help Mary and wanted to finish the job.
He proposed that he popped in on an adhoc basis when he could so that he could rectify the issues “a bit at a time”.
Worried, Mary felt she had no alternative but to accept so did so gratefully.
The handyman handed her a bill for £49.99 for reparing the leak which Mary paid immediately.
She told me that she was pleasantly surprised with this as it was cheaper than she expected.
Over the next 14 months the handyman and his young sidekick turned up at Mary’s house on a frequent basis, for no more than one hour on each occasion.
Mary has no idea what they did on each occasion as she simply left them to their work.
Then on October 2 this year the horror story unfolded. The handyman called at Mary’s house and handed her an envelope with an invoice. The invoice was for £6,298.74 and stated that it was 126 call outs at £49.99 each.
Mary was shocked and wrote to me.
I’ve written to the handyman and told him this is not on. Clearly no price was agreed with Mary and in these circumstances the Consumer Rights Act says that Mary will have to “pay a reasonable price for the service and no more” (section 51[2]).
Mary is now getting a reputable trader to do a report on exactly what work this handyman has done so that we can assess what’s ‘reasonable’.