Police officer, 33, says he and his family have been left £50,000 out of pocket by ‘cowboy builders’

• Sam Davison paid more than £50,000 for work on his home in Bedfordshire
• The policeman is now suing the ‘cowboy builders’  who carried out the work

A police officer has claimed ‘cowboy builders’ have left him more than £50,000 out of pocket after turning his home into a ‘construction site’.

Father-of-two Sam Davison, 33, hired Gareth Farr’s company Home Counties Building Services to carry out work on his home in Caddington, Bedfordshire. 

The policeman paid the builder £52,500 to build a single story extension, remodel the back of his house, and carry out work in the garden. 

He was, however, forced to cut the job short due to his dissatisfaction about the quality of the builder’s work.

Now, Mr Davison is taking legal action against the ‘cowboy builder’ after discovering a Facebook group full of people with similar complaints.   

Police officer Sam Davies, 33, (pictured) is suing a ‘cowboy builder’ after paying him  £52,500 

‘I’m a serving police officer, and frankly, I feel like I’m the victim of a crime,’ Mr Davison told the Daily Mirror.

The builder has subsequently said his work over the ‘last 18 months’ had not been delivered to ‘the quality and timescales’ that he had become known for. 

READ MORE: The building inspectors exposing cowboy builders on TikTok: Experts’ videos blasting ‘absolutely shocking’ paving, electrics and brickwork have been watched over eight million times 

Mr Davison claims an independent report shows shows the work carried out by Mr Farr is worth significantly less than the fees he paid. 

The report, by a quantitative surveyor, showed the builder carried out £26,500 worth of work after Mr Davison paid him £52,500.

A neighbour, who also works as a builder, told Mr Davies that steel beams and tiles installed by Mr Farr did not match with plans drawn up by civil engineers.  

The police officer subsequently remortgaged his house and paid another £20,000 to have Mr Farr’s work fixed. 

‘We have managed to get the back of our house partially completed having re-mortgaged to do so,’ Mr Davison said. ‘The front of our house, however remains a building site.’

The 33-year-old is now calling for more stringent regulation of the building sector after claiming ‘there doesn’t seem to be any sort of protection for consumers when hiring tradespeople’.

‘Even with contracts in place, that people feel will offer them adequate protection, when something goes wrong, disputing a contract is a difficult and expensive process,’ Mr Davison said. 

‘This leaves the consumer zero chance of achieving a positive outcome.’

‘Tradespeople can act how they like without exposing themselves to the risk of any potential loss.’ 

‘Whilst as a consumer, we find ourselves in the position in which there is the potential for us to lose everything.’

Sam Davies (pictured) said the ‘cowboy builder’ left his house looking like a ‘construction site’

In a statement, Mr Farr told the Daily Mirror:  There are multiple ongoing legal processes already in place so this is difficult to comment on in full. I have instructed Solicitors alongside the Davisons.

‘What I can say is that I was removed from the project due to lack of progress, I was removed at the point that works were incomplete – I offered to return and was refused.

‘I do not deliver works that are not to building regulation standards and work that isn’t compete cannot be judged on this basis. 

‘The roof tiles weren’t as specified due to the pitch of the roof, this was an architect issue and I adapted to it. I did have building control to site and they did sign off a number of stages.

‘The Davisons were offered a re-payment plan months ago and refused. They were promised payments on multiple occasions but when you remove my ability to earn money, you remove the people closest to me who offered to help and you affect business deals then it becomes impossible to meet what I hoped to pay.

Source: Read Full Article