I'm sorry to hear that george-cauty. I would have thought that the worst he could do was take you to the small claims court where you can fight your corner when you produce photographs of your garden. Do you have any taken before the work commenced?
Oh dear .I’ve been following this thread with interest and was afraid for you that this might happen ,especially when I read that you were withholding payment .I would say ,never do that ,it puts their back up straight away . Its too late to have a proper decent conversation with him now that he has become aggressive towards you . You need some advice on where to go from here ,I do hope you get somewhere soon ,you must feel very uneasy ,but honestly ,I think you’re on a hiding to nothing . Unless you have paperwork pointing out what has been promised and what has actually been done ,I don’t think you’ve got an earthly ,I’m so sorry .
We have all messages to him, briefing what we want, and photo evidence showing what he has completed. We have photos of all the mess he has left behind too (His invoice included waste removal). Photos of plants he has killed etc. I'm not witholding payment, I offered him a smaller amount as he did not finish the job and not to the standard we were expecting. As the Consumer Rights Act 2015 states, we are actually within our right to not pay him anything. However we offered to pay him his hourly rate and happy to pay for more for the waste that he did remove. He could have counter offered this with a price he thinks it reasonable. Instead of he got angry and threatened harrasment charges if we messaged him again, resulting in us not being able to come to an agreed price or pay him. He isn't going to win any sort of legal battle lol...
I'm sorry to hear that george-cauty. I would have thought that the worst he could do was take you to the small claims court where you can fight your corner when you produce photographs of your garden. Do you have any taken before the work commenced?
He completely flipped out, has been sending aggressive and angry messages and threats. Said he will file harrasment charges (After all I did was email him once), place a 'sanction on the property' and said he's taking us to court. Spending today installing CCTV around the property because of how aggressive he is being. I'm shocked how someone could be so unprofessional
Yes, that is the problem. Horrid to deal with and why more people don't challenge bad work.
I'm sorry to hear that george-cauty. I would have thought that the worst he could do was take you to the small claims court where you can fight your corner when you produce photographs of your garden. Do you have any taken before the work commenced?
Yes managed to find lots of before photos
Can you post some photos of the damaged trees? The rosemary looked bad but hard to judge without knowing how it looked before (how much green growth there was over the old wood). The bay tree is ok, it will look good next spring.
To clarify, i'm not looking for compensation, just to pay a smaller fee as he killed plants, left waste and only did one day's work (It was meant to be two). He chose to take me to court, not the other way around Thanks for the advice everyone!
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We have all messages to him, briefing what we want, and photo evidence showing what he has completed. We have photos of all the mess he has left behind too (His invoice included waste removal). Photos of plants he has killed etc. I'm not witholding payment, I offered him a smaller amount as he did not finish the job and not to the standard we were expecting. As the Consumer Rights Act 2015 states, we are actually within our right to not pay him anything. However we offered to pay him his hourly rate and happy to pay for more for the waste that he did remove. He could have counter offered this with a price he thinks it reasonable. Instead of he got angry and threatened harrasment charges if we messaged him again, resulting in us not being able to come to an agreed price or pay him. He isn't going to win any sort of legal battle lol...
Yes managed to find lots of before photos
The rosemary looked bad but hard to judge without knowing how it looked before (how much green growth there was over the old wood). The bay tree is ok, it will look good next spring.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.