A House Divided
My uncle did some carpentry work for my sister and her partner. He botched the whole lot because when the building inspectors came, they instantly had to condemn the building until the work was done properly. This forced my sister’s partner to sell his house at an insanely reduced price because of the state it was in—condemned.
He nearly made my sister and her partner homeless—but that was just the beginning. His defense was that they asked him to do “what would be the cheapest quick fix until they had enough money to renovate to how they wanted it”. They signed the contract, so he had no legitimate fallout for what he did. He also had the nerve to charge them more than he quoted because the job was “tricky”.
He still got paid because he took liberties with their lack of knowledge. Then, he decided to do some “renovations” to a house that my mom and aunt co-owned. He ripped down all the walls that weren’t load bearing, removed the ENTIRE floor, so nothing but the concrete footings remained, and removed the kitchen and the stairs. The house was not in any habitable state.
Nine months later, he proceeded to invoice my mom for work he had done, despite not being asked to, nor them agreeing to use him for the work. After a few back and forth e-mails, my aunt decided to start proper proceedings to reclaim the £11,000 in lost rent and owed wages for the work. Both my aunt and uncle KNEW my mom couldn’t afford the fees since she was living rent-free in a house I owned because she had just lost her full-time job.
My mom went to a lawyer. The attorney told her that because they had invoices proving what was owed, my mom only had about a 20% chance of winning a constitutional battle despite being in the right. So, not only did my mom lose her job and house, she lost her ONLY RETIREMENT SECURITY as she was forced to sign over her half of the house for payment.