We completely renovated a house, in general pretty good although massive overruns - mainly because the builder promised to do works by a date… then months would slip. The roof leaks, and his first attempt to repair it (I paid for materials) failed, and we had to wait almost a year for him to attempt again (again I paid ~500euros for materials as he said he had no money). Catastrophic leaks… so we want to redo roof entirely. He is an electrician by trade. We had a roofer we know is good have a look, and we want to redo the roof. Expensive. And we don’t have any money left. We want to get some money back from our builder without the expensive legal route. How can we apply pressure?
Did you have a detailed devis, does your builder have a Siret number that includes roofing and did you checkhis decennial insurance ?
And how did you pay him?
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If you have a signed devis, even if outside his/her area of qualification, it will be covered by their decennial insurance. So you can claim off that, Here:
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The most important thing here is the existence & validity of the artisan’s assurance décennale. An electrician could, in theory, also do some roofing without their Siret number showing that (as it’s not the principal activity), but they must be insured to do such works.
You should have been offered a copy of the policy when receiving the legally required devis outlining the intended works & the price, which you should have agreed & signed.
As the roof is preventing you from enjoying the property it should create a claim under such a a policy, but only as long as the devis/contract price has been billed for & paid in full.
It doesn’t matter if the artisan no longer trades/has run away/retired/died - as long as the policy was in force during the period that the works were carried out, & the payment terms have been adhered to.
Exactly right as the widow of an artisan here for many years you need to consult the Déçennale insurance. HOWEVER and this is a legal point from own experience, if you have not paid ALL bills in full first, the insurance will not be valid - As ruled by the TGI when someone did the same to us as scammers and had not paid the final €5000 they owed us - ended up costing them over €90,000 and us over €60,000 in legal fees and 14 years of being attacked until a judge discovered their past and their motives.
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Many thanks for all the replies! Yes, I have the devis and factures, he also has a siret number. But I don’t know about his insurance.
That’s great. Can you prove that you have paid in full?
Which, as I said above, may not be helpful to a claim.
A polite request for evidence that he had an appropriate policy in force at the time of the works seems in order. If that is not forthcoming try to find out which company he holds insurance with & ask them.
As a warning for the future (& anyone else reading this) please make sure you get evidence of any artisan’s insurance policy before engaging them. Any bona fide tradesperson will happily produce it as it costs them a lot of money & sets them aside from the cowboys.