A
acorn1
Your forum is very informative….I wonder whether anyone can help with our sorry little tale, let me try to explain. We are building a house and appointed a (so-called) reputable main contractor. The main contractor subsequently appointed various sub-contractors. The duration of the contract was estimated to be approximately 6 months, however, after nearly a year only now are we approaching completion. Presently we believe there is no more than a few days work for the electrician to finish off the project and we could then move in, but we have hit a snag. The main contractor has been taking liberties with sub-contractors payments. We, the client, have remitted interim payments to the main contractor within 7 days, in accordance with our FMB Contract. However, it has gradually come to light that the main contractor has not been passing payments down the line to our sub-contractors. We understand main contractors are slow to pay their subbies but in this instance the delays were way beyond that deemed acceptable and were unquestionably immoral. Once this practice was made known to us we confronted the main contractor. As a result we offered our assistance to pay the subbies directly and purchase any large capital items on behalf of the main contractor (and deduct from the bill accordingly). The main contractor clearly had severe cash flow problems and so agreed to allow us to purchase any remaining big ticket items but refused to authorise any direct payments to subbies. However, since our confrontation matters have deteriorated and now the electrical contractor has walked off site. He refuses to come back and finish off what we estimate to be only a few days work. He will not return until he’s been paid by the main contractor. To make matters worse the electrical contractor is working for the same main contractor on several other sites in the locality and is owed a significant amount of money. Because of this the electrical contractor is beholding to the main contractor and is reluctant to further antagonise him. The contracted has stalled and could take months to resolve, in the meantime we are stuck in an expensive rented house whilst the main contractor plays cat and mouse with the subbies. To make matters even more frustrating our new house is just a few days from completion!! In desperation we informed the main contractor we would finish the contract off ourselves and approached the electrical contractor offering to pay him direct. He declined our offer and advised he had been warned by the main contractor not to speak to us, furthermore because he was owed so much money collectively from all the other unpaid jobs, his allegiance was with the main contractor. Basically we’ll have to finish the job off with another electrician because the present contractor won’t. The question is, how difficult is it to get another electrical contractor to finish off someone else’s work (I don’t think there is any problem with the workmanship)? Furthermore, we will require all the various electrical certificates to satisfy building control. What is entailed, how do we go about this, is there a code of practice? We would welcome any advice and guidance offered. Thank you in anticipation! (PS The project is in Yorkshire).
