NMKC, may I ask what sort of professional is helping you, and where you found them?

I have a multitude of war stories of build issues caused by laziness, stupidity, short cuts, carelessness, negligence or ignorance by the builder/their contractors. I try to check discretely out of hours as much as I can, such as labels and markings on materials or once asking for a copy of a receipt/delivery note because they are prone to sometimes buy different spec cheaper materials. I threw away some out of date material left on site to ensure they couldn’t use it. I have also had to resort to just ordering some particular items that the architect specified that you can’t just buy off the shelf at every builders merchant myself. If they can’t buy it immediately at their own favoured merchant they invariably buy some makeshift or botched alternative.

Thank you for your kind thoughts DMP. I'm sorry to hear about your friends; it does seem to be a very common experience, sadly. I'm not sure I'm capable of making any sound investment decisions at the moment, so am leaving that side of things alone, mostly. I suppose the positive thing to say, is that my pf has enabled me to continue to withdraw an income, which I can increase to cover the costs of temporary accommodation, storage, and a PM (if I can find one at this late stage), and, if absolutely necessary, I will have sufficient capital from the sale of my current home to write off the monies spent to date, and start again with new builders if I have to, or sell up and take the loss.

NB there are many people who will think this is very much a 1% / 1st world problem, and to some extent it is, but it certainly takes its toll.

Thank you for your kind thoughts DMP. I'm sorry to hear about your friends; it does seem to be a very common experience, sadly. I'm not sure I'm capable of making any sound investment decisions at the moment, so am leaving that side of things alone, mostly. I suppose the positive thing to say, is that my pf has enabled me to continue to withdraw an income, which I can increase to cover the costs of temporary accommodation, storage, and a PM (if I can find one at this late stage), and, if absolutely necessary, I will have sufficient capital from the sale of my current home to write off the monies spent to date, and start again with new builders if I have to, or sell up and take the loss.

NB there are many people who will think this is very much a 1% / 1st world problem, and to some extent it is, but it certainly takes its toll.[/quote]

I hope you don't need to sell up as I recall you mentioning this was your family home that you are redoing? or did I get that wrong? I would suggest maybe seeing if a project manager would be willing to take on the project. Its not only from an oversight point of view but they have access to contractors/builders etc that a lay man wouldnt, who are incentivized to get the job done due to the repeat business. Only reason that I know this is because my sister is one, she offered to take on the job for my aforementioned friends who (fair enough) didn't want to given the additional cost and thought process they could oversee it themselves, despite having no experience. Unfortunately due to additional costs brought on by builders/delays/unforeseen events, a good project manager would have paid for itself at this point.

So a further development...

Having failed to establish contact with my builders by phone, email or text message, it seems they have gone for good, leaving me with an unfinished project and significantly out of pocket to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds, which I probably have no chance of seeing again. The website is still live, companies registration, mailing address etc. are unchanged, though, so I will pursue a claim if I can. I've sent a formal email requesting a response by the end of today, and referring to the contract terms. Went to the site to find various materials, tools and workboots, but of course no work ongoing, so I've changed the locks.

One of their suppliers told me that they have held back items of mine as they have failed to clear their account, and as more than half of the work has been completed (to a high standard), and some items were delivered just a week ago, I can only assume that they did intend to honour the contract, but have since had cash flow problems, although I am unclear whether it is just me or all of their clients who are affected - I suspect they were prioritising the bigger projects and I was the low hanging fruit.

Just when you think things can't get much worse... Still, at least now I can hopefully bring in a Project Manager to help me make better choices next time. Building Control are coming next week to assess the work done so far / remaining, and I will see what Trading Standards have to say.