Homewrecker?
Couple claim builder’s £64k job left house uninhabitable
A COUPLE say they are trapped in a home improvement nightmare after plans for a £64,000 extension ended in disaster.
Barbara Iavarone and husband Gus Digennaro bought their two-bedroom bungalow in 2014 and began saving up to transform it into a family home.
‘The plot had everything we wanted – once we’d had all the work done we expected it to be our dream home,’ Miss Iavarone, 46, said.
After a recommendation from a friend they hired local builder Terry Megram, 56, to overhaul the property in Denton, Greater Manchester. Plans included knocking down the garage and replacing it with a third bedroom for their elder daughter, now 15, plus extensions to the side and rear and a new roof.
But nine months on, work has ground to a halt, with Mr Digennaro and a neighbour having to tile the roof themselves to make it weatherproof. It is currently an uninhabitable shell with the new utility room incomplete, a gaping hole in the front and no internal walls, floors or ceilings.
The couple say they have lost all trust in Mr Megram and won’t pay him for any more work unless he shows them receipts for the building materials he has bought so far.
He insists they are to blame for the dispute, because they did not have planning permission when they hired him.
According to Mr Megram, the couple also increased the cost of the project by repeatedly changing their minds about what they wanted – and agreed to a longer timescale because they had run out of money. To make matters worse, the council has written to the homeowners saying the new roof is higher than they had permission for – and may have to be ripped out.
Whoever is at fault, the fiasco serves as a warning to the growing number of homeowners reacting to the stagnant housing market by extending instead.
According to one recent study the number looking to ‘improve, not move’ has increased five-fold since 2013, with factors said to include Brexit uncertainty and the so- called Grand Designs effect as families take inspiration from the Channel 4 show.
A contract with Mr Megram was agreed last May for a total price of £ 48,000, with work planned to finish in August.
The couple say they later agreed to increase this to about £64,000 to raise the roofline of the property to enable a potential future loft conversion.
According to Mr Digennaro, an IT manager, they made the agreed payments for the materials and wages as asked by Mr Megram. The new footprint of the house began to take shape while they moved into rented accommodation – but the couple became frustrated at the slow progress.
‘[Mr Megram] was meant to be working on the property, but a whole day would go by and nothing seemed to have progressed,’ Miss Iavarone said.
The couple deny that they ran out of money to complete the project and say they withheld payments because they believed they were being overcharged.
Mr Megram – who trades as TCT Solutions – disputes the couple’s account, adding: ‘I’ve worked in the building industry for 38 years and nothing like this has ever happened to me before.
‘The bottom line is that they didn’t have the money to pay for what they wanted to be done.’