Basement Construction Law

A Few Important Notes before discussing Basement Construction Law.

Solicitors are very good at winning clear-cut claims, but a lot less good at getting the damages and costs paid. You could win, get nothing and be even worse off having to pay your own legal costs as well.

Years ago I bought and studied the books. This page is from memory to keep it simple. It should not be relied upon. Get proper legal advice but be wary of point 1 above.

The Construction Act does not apply to work on homes lived in throughout.

The Construction Act prevents claims going to court. Instead they must go to Adjudication. No costs may be awarded at Adjudication. You always pay for your own costs.

If you take your contractor to court, his legal team will roll out millions of sheets of paper. Far too much for the adjudicator to read. To prepare in advance to beat every sheet will cost you £250,000 plus. Therefore, your costs will always exceed your claim. And you might not win anything.

If you are unhappy with your contractor, he is vastly more experienced at stitching you up than you are at winning anything, because he has been stitched up and won nothing from main contractors many times. He already learned some hard lessons, cute tricks and how to lie reassuringly from your first contact.

You might also like to think for a moment about the difficulty a contract can create during times of inflation.

It has been reported that 59% of construction contracts have problems.

As time goes by, the client gets better and better value as prices rise but the value of the contract stays the same.

But the contractor sees their costs rising and if the client won't step in and help then profit gets eroded and, sometimes, if the contractor is to finish the job he has to cheat and cut costs somehow.

You can start to look into Basement Construction Law a bit more here: Construction Act Guide.

The last company I held a salaried position in, until about 2002, went bust because the bank pulled the plug after a second main contractor made a wholly unacceptable final offer about £400,000 less than was owed "Or take us to Adjudication".

The company had already borrowed at the bank and spent over £100,000 with solicitors preparing for one hearing. They were nearly ready when the second refused to pay as well. The bank would not lend more for a second fight and sent in the receivers immediately.

Both main contractors told the receivers there were many disputes so the receiver walked away and both main contractors 'won' well over half of a million they no longer had to pay.

My ways save my clients typically 30%. If you think you can enter into a contract with a contractor and save more by cheating even more than 30% then you will not be my client or get my help. Neither should you expect your contractor to have done a good job, because he will sense something and cut more corners than you could imagine.

This report on the BBC News web site tells us that terrible design, supervision, workmanship and inspection could be rife. This is a terrible situation for those caught up in it.

The report says inspections were by Salus (Building Control & Fire Safety Consultants) Ltd and the warranty by Acasta European Insurance Company Ltd.

Conclusion.

My position is abundantly clear.

Do not enter into a contract.

A contract allows your contractor to do what the hell he likes, cut what corners he can and use inferior materials. Because the contract means you cannot interfere except by going to adjudication later.

Pay everyone and for everything directly. If there is anything you don't like, pay them up to date but tell them not to come back.

It is the ONLY way to get your basement built waterproof from the concrete alone.

This does not mean you need to manage full time or do the hard work yourself. It means you pay your manager and you pay the people he recruits.

Back to the Basement Building Questions Answered menu.

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