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OK, So you dont like in depth postings, so I'll keep this one short!

Could anybody enlighten me as to our posision regarding unfinished work by our French builder please?

We have been waiting for about a year now for some very important work to be completed, but our builder is ignoring us totally.

Can we report him to our local maire, and get him to contact the builder and if this fails, get another builder in to complete the work and then send the bill to our original builder? thank you

 

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Do you live in France - or, in other words, is your builder within reach? Can you go to his yard or his home? When you say your builder is ignoring you totally - what is he ignoring? Phone calls? Emails? Letters? I appreciate you thought it best to give the bare facts but a bit more info would be helpful in order to suggest an approach. [:)]

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Apologies, I don't have any useful info for you, but wish you luck in your plight! We had a similar situation with a builder a couple of years ago, on a smaller scale. It is demoralising when someone tells you they will do something and doesn't. We decided to pay an aritisan to do work my husband was capable of doing, whilst he sorted out his own business. We ended up with poor or uncompleted work and endless problems. We cancelled the final job as we had waited too long and needed to rent the property - we ended up losing the already-paid deposit and paying someone else who did the job in a couple of days but only charged half the price.

As I understand it, if a devis was offered and agreed upon and the work was done then if you are unhappy you should send a recorded/registered letter to the worker responsible. If they reply in writing that they will rectify any problems then all well and good...if they do it...but if the new work is not satisfactory, or as in your case, unforthcoming, then you are entitled to take them to tribunal.

In the grand scale of things these jobs are trivial but in reality they do make for a stressful situation - one I do not wish to repeat. And now having all the renovation complete and a fabby tenant for a year we have our new tenants who appear to not take paying the rent on time too seriously.... could make for a trying winter as it's our main income.

Good luck,

Jane

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[quote user="Colandhelinfrance"]

Many thanks for your reply, for a more detailed story please look under my earlier posting under =

 "Want to Try My New Shower Suite"[/quote]

[:-))]

You want me to search for your earlier thread which is somewhere on this forum so I can then spend time replying to the questions you asked above...[blink]

Yeah, that's going to happen. [kiss]

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Hi,

Yes Thierry of TCM is registered, and No the work isn't blackish. I will attempt to cut & paste my earlier posting.

Before you all remind me of the golden rule (dont pay the whole amount until the work is finnished) I know, I know.

Well, we thought we were being nice friendly people by befriending our French artisan Thierry. We actually passed him Four friends who all had major work done.

We had extensive renovation work done to the tune of around £40,000. Everything seemed to be going fine, work completed we checked for any snagging that needed doing, made our list, gave it to the artisan, he completed three of the small jobs but has not attempted to complete any others.

A major snag was the staircase, a wooden twisting(but not quite spiral) type. These are a bad fit, extremely steep and as we both think, dangerous. A second important problem arose, the shower was leeking into our front room, so when you sat on the armchair, you could treat yourself to a lovely shower. We of course reported this, and after five attempts spread over a 10 month period to repair this failed, I decided to look behind the cut away plaster board in our bedroom (they needed this for access) and to my horror, all they had been doing was spreading silicone everywhere at the back of the shower, there must have been four tube fulls there.

So after spending last New Year at our house with friends, we called in Thierry and at his own suggestion, he said that he would change the whole shower unit, also he would finish off the other eight snagging jobs, and also run another circuit into our kitchen (the electricity keeps triping)  He also agreed to change our staircase, especially now that my wife has just had a major back op.

Well you guessed it, its now September and he has not even attepted to carry our any of this work.

Since this has been going on for two and a half years, we decided we need to take action. Is it correct that we can report him to our maire , and eventually get someone else to complete the work and make him pay? 

 

 

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U thnik the normal procedure, once a friendly approach to your builder has failed to produce a result, is to  contact a huissier. 

I think Catalpa had a fair point - replying by asking people to search for something you said somewhere else is not usually going to help.  No offence meant.  Please don't take it. [:)]

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[quote user="Colandhelinfrance"]

The posting was only three columns down on the first page.[/quote]

I only look at Active Topics so your previous post wasn't visible. I looked in Renovations because it seemed the logical section to check. It didn't appear on the first page and as I had no idea when you'd posted your query or even if I was looking in the right place I (temporarily) lost the will to help... [:-))]

Anyway. How I would proceed - and we have experience in the ferocious chivvying of non-performing artisans - is:

- Get friend Thierry out for another appointment to discuss the work

- Give him a list of the items outstanding

- If there's any doubt about how a job will be completed, make sure he knows and agrees what you are expecting. His plans and your expectations may not coincide

- Go through it with him and agree dates - completion dates [6]

- Ideally, write the completion dates against each job and both of you sign / date both sheets and he takes one away with him

- Immediately confirm in writing all that you've discussed and agreed and send it to him along with another copy of your list. It would be a shame if the first copy got lost in the footwell of his van. [6]

- If he wasn't prepared to sign the list, write the letter confirming everything you discussed with dates agreed.

- Send it (and this is v. important) recommande avec avis de reception. Ask for the service at the post office. It's a receipt returned to you signed by whoever takes delivery of the letter. Kind of like a recorded delivery but you get the confirmation slip a few days later.

- This indicates to the builder you're seriously serious

- You are building a documented case for action against him either via the hussiers as Cassis says or as proof that you are within your rights to get someone else to finish the work and bill him for it.

- Unless you've been documenting all your requests for the work to be done, I believe you're on shaky ground regarding calling in another artisan and trying to bill Thierry at this stage. This is France. Paperwork matters. Which is why the recorded delivery letters should have the effect you want.

Two potential problems with this approach. He might not agree to come and see you. In which case you have to write to him - recommande avec avis etc - requesting a meeting. I would tell him a date and time you've chosen for the meeting.

He might refuse to take delivery of the letter. In which case you have documentary evidence that he is unwilling to talk to you / resolve the problems and again it's a step in building your case.

In our experience, once you start firing letters confirming every phone call and sending them recommande avec avis, the artisan accepts you are serious and that you are building up a documented case over his non-performance. You still have to keep the pressure on though. I believe you can also go and speak to the Chambre de Metiers about him. I am not sure about this - someone else may add their knowledge - but I think they are able to contribute to the resolution of this type of problem though I don't know how.  I'm not sure what the Mairie can do...

I'm sure you have, but take photographs of all the problems, especially your leaking shower and the bodged attempt at remedial work. You might need them later. [Www] Oh, and get a copy of his decennal insurance.

Edit:

Have just read on another forum that someone with artisan problems went to the Chambre de Metiers and discussed the problems with them. Using information from the CdeM, they wrote registered dely to the artisan and, in their case, got a complete refund for all of the work that had been inadequately carried out. A visit to the Chambre de Metiers then, I think. [:)]

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