Lee Slocombe, a builder hired to renovate her ex-boyfriend’s home in the south Wales valleys, offered to do the work cheaply because he had materials left over from another job, then asked for money upfront to buy additional supplies. The couple budgeted about £8,000 for work that included removing a supporting wall and building an extension with a balcony. Within weeks, the house had been ripped apart.
By the end, the couple had handed over about £14,000. The builder gave various excuses about where the money had gone and said he was expecting a medical payout for an injury suffered on another job, which he would use to repay them. He even turned up one day in a sling and said he needed a few weeks off.
Then, after about six weeks, he disappeared. Slocombe, from Swansea, was jailed for six years in February after defrauding nine victims of £400,000 – his latest conviction in a decade of offending. Ingram’s case was part of a previous trial.
Ingram is one of many customers who have lost money to cowboy builders. In July, Citizens Advice said 4.8 million homeowners had a problem with a home repair job in the previous 18 months, from unfinished or unsafe work, to disputes with traders. About 1.7 million had to pay more to fix earlier work, or had been overcharged, losing an average of £750 each.
For one in 10, the extra cost topped £5,000. Among Andy Burnham’s first promises as prime minister was a crackdown on rogue builders, with a register of trusted traders scheduled to go live this month. The government is also backing a Trusted Payment app, endorsed by the Chartered Trading Standards Institute.
It will create a “fair contract between trade and consumer”, says its director, James Walker. Under the system, milestone payments are delayed by 24 hours, giving time to cancel if consumers feel under pressure, with payments for completed work held in escrow by the Dispute Resolution Ombudsman until the job is finished to both parties’ satisfaction. Projects costing more than £2,500 are covered by a two-year warranty.
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