I need some advice (maybe legal advice as well).
My wife got a piece of land from her dad - so we built a house on it.
We did direct labour. We did the plans ourselves and the foundations.
The builder was in charge of doing the shell of the house (walls, stone cladding and roof) – he quoted 46K PUNT, this was back in 1998 and we shook on it.
His quote was written on a general receipt book with only our names, description as ‘2 storey house (walls, stone cladding & roof)’. We had no official contracts or any formal written communication.
He took 3 YEARS to actually finish his work.
Basically, because my wife and I were working in the UK, he took the p#ss, because he knew we wouldn’t be there to give him hassle.
Every time we phoned him to give him stick, he had an excuse (sand was frozen - was one to mention). The whole experience left a sour taste in our mouths.
He finished up March 2001 and we paid him up to that point 36K punt. He never came back to us after that for the rest of the money.
We moved into the house in October 2001 and we still heard nothing from him. So I reckoned that with all the hassle he had given us, the length of time which it took him to do the job and to allow for snagging, I thought (naively) that he had written off the 10K punt.
Now, last week (Dec 2006), I received a standard post envelope, from the builder, with an A5 letter-headed invoice, with scribbled on it “€26K incl. Interest, please pay me my money!”.
I couldn’t believe it! I was so annoyed I threw it in the fire, thinking to myself, he can sing for that.
Then I started to think about the legal side of things. A friend of mine, said something about, if an invoice isn’t paid after 5 years then they have no ground to collect on it.
Does that ring any bells with anyone? Obviously I don’t want to give him another cent after the heartache/grey hairs he gave us. And I can’t just fork out 26 grand.
Any suggestions? I was hoping for a bit of advice from here before I go and see a solicitor.
My wife got a piece of land from her dad - so we built a house on it.
We did direct labour. We did the plans ourselves and the foundations.
The builder was in charge of doing the shell of the house (walls, stone cladding and roof) – he quoted 46K PUNT, this was back in 1998 and we shook on it.
His quote was written on a general receipt book with only our names, description as ‘2 storey house (walls, stone cladding & roof)’. We had no official contracts or any formal written communication.
He took 3 YEARS to actually finish his work.
Basically, because my wife and I were working in the UK, he took the p#ss, because he knew we wouldn’t be there to give him hassle.
Every time we phoned him to give him stick, he had an excuse (sand was frozen - was one to mention). The whole experience left a sour taste in our mouths.
He finished up March 2001 and we paid him up to that point 36K punt. He never came back to us after that for the rest of the money.
We moved into the house in October 2001 and we still heard nothing from him. So I reckoned that with all the hassle he had given us, the length of time which it took him to do the job and to allow for snagging, I thought (naively) that he had written off the 10K punt.
Now, last week (Dec 2006), I received a standard post envelope, from the builder, with an A5 letter-headed invoice, with scribbled on it “€26K incl. Interest, please pay me my money!”.
I couldn’t believe it! I was so annoyed I threw it in the fire, thinking to myself, he can sing for that.
Then I started to think about the legal side of things. A friend of mine, said something about, if an invoice isn’t paid after 5 years then they have no ground to collect on it.
Does that ring any bells with anyone? Obviously I don’t want to give him another cent after the heartache/grey hairs he gave us. And I can’t just fork out 26 grand.
Any suggestions? I was hoping for a bit of advice from here before I go and see a solicitor.