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Electrician massively overrunning finishing agreed work and seems generally incomptetent: what should I do?
I employed an electrician to do some fairly major re-wiring work on my house. He gave me a detailed quotation for each item of work which was agreed along with a start date and anticipated time scale of approx. 10 days. Unfortunately he has not had any commitment to our job and is still not finished after 10 weeks. I contacted him on several occasions asking where he was and asking for a new schedule but he very often broke his promises to us. I finally asked him to leave the job safe and leave and to send me the invoice for work done. unfortunately he has sent me the invoice for all the work assumed finished. He has also retained my front door key explaining that he will return it only when I pay the bill. I have tried to contact him to go through the aspects I am prepared to pay for but do not get a response. I am now worried what should I do. I have incurred around £600 worth of furniture storage costs over what I expected as the job has taken longer. I indicated that time was a priority before he started. What should I do - can he legally retain my front door key until payment? He also left our fuse box with an earth leakage fault (safety related) which I have fixed myself - I am a professional electrical engineer and do know what I am doing - I only employed the electrician to work on my house as I have little time He also left a 17yr old on my property all day unattended with an SDS hammer drill to chase out walls for cables while he went to another job - this in my mind is unacceptable...
You should put in writing a clear and unequivocal statement of your position namely that:
- You have lost all faith in his ability to complete the job within a reasonable time frame.
- You have lost faith in his competence following your discovery of an earthing fault.
- His conduct in refusing to return your keys is both unprofessional and by implication and indication that he intends to access your premises without permission.
In light of the above you intend to take the following action ;
- Instruct a competent electrician to complete the works.
- Immediately change the locks (even if the keys are returned he may have a copy).
The cost of these items and the extra cost of storage will be deducted from the agreed fees and the balance sent to him.
If he is a member of any recognised trade body send a copy of the letter to them.
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