Template · Consumer Rights Act 2015

The defects letter

A phone call about bad work goes nowhere twice and then goes stale. A dated letter with a numbered list, a statutory basis and a deadline is a different document: it can be answered item by item, it cannot be misremembered, and it is the thing you hand over if this ever has to go further. List what is wrong and the page writes the rest.

1. Who, and where

Your full name Builder’s name or company name Your address Builder’s address Your email or phone, optional Where the work was carried out, if not your address above

2. The contract What the job was

Date of the contract, optional Your reference or their quote number, optional Agreed price, optional Paid so far, optional Date the work was finished, or they were last on site, optional Was a price agreed? Section 51 only bites where no price was agreed and nothing has been paid. If you have paid, the letter leaves it out rather than claim it. Who supplied the materials? This changes which half of the Act applies. Materials the builder supplied and installed are goods, and section 15 makes an incorrect installation a fault in the goods with its own remedies. Materials you bought yourself are outside that: section 19(2) takes out any failure that has its origin in materials supplied by the consumer, so the letter leaves the goods point alone rather than assert it.

Anything they told you about the job that you took into account, optional Section 50 turns what a trader said or wrote about themselves or the service into a term of the contract, if you took it into account when deciding to go ahead or when making a decision about the work afterwards. Quote it as closely as you can, and say where it came from. It is subject to anything said on the same occasion that qualified it, and to any change the two of you expressly agreed, so a change nobody put to you does not count.

3. Timing, if it is part of the complaint

The Act treats a fixed date and an open-ended job differently. Where the contract fixed a completion date, that date is the term and missing it is an ordinary breach of contract. Where it fixed none, section 52 supplies a term that the work be done within a reasonable time, and section 54(5) gives a price reduction for breaching it. Naming the wrong one weakens the letter, so the page asks.

Is lateness part of your complaint?

4. What is wrong

One row per defect, and split anything that has two separate causes into two rows. Say what you can see rather than what you think caused it: describing the crack is stronger than diagnosing the lintel, because the crack is a fact and you do not have to defend it. If you have raised something before, the date you raised it is worth more than almost anything else in the letter.

Photographs are attached Number them to match the list and take them before anything is touched. A photograph with a date on it settles more arguments than a paragraph. How many photographs Anything else you are enclosing, optional Send the paperwork with the letter rather than waiting to be asked for it. A trader who has the quotation and the dates in front of them answers the items; one who has to go looking answers in general terms. If it ever goes further, both sides are expected to have put their key documents on the table early, so nothing is lost by doing it now.

5. What you want, and by when

Written response by Fourteen days is usually reasonable for a reply. Shorter if water is coming in. Work put right by Section 55(2)(a) asks for a reasonable time, judged by the nature of the service and the purpose it was for. A day of making good is not a month. Two to four weeks reads as firm and fair for most snagging, and gives them room to order materials and find a gap. A deadline nobody can meet is one they will ignore.

Why those dates are reasonable, optional Anything in their terms they may rely on to say no, optional A short notice period for reporting defects, a cap on what they will put right, a line saying their decision is final, a clause excluding liability once you have paid. Quote it and the letter answers it under section 57, which is the section that stops a trader writing section 49 out of the contract. Leave it blank if there is nothing like that, or if you have never seen their terms. Date of this letter Include the escalation paragraph Asks for their own complaints procedure, names any trade body or ombudsman scheme they belong to, and says what happens if this is not resolved. Drop it if you would rather keep the first letter soft.

Trade body, ombudsman or consumer code scheme they belong to, optional Check their website, their van and their paperwork, and check the scheme’s own register rather than taking the logo at face value. If you are not sure, leave it blank: the letter then simply asks which schemes they belong to. Guarantee, warranty or insurance-backed guarantee for this work, optional A separate route from the trade body, and the one that survives if the builder stops trading. If you were promised one and never received it, say so here: the letter then asks for it, along with any building control, gas, electrical or glazing certificate for the work.

The sections the letter uses

s 49

Reasonable care and skill Every contract to supply a service is treated as including a term that the trader must perform the service with reasonable care and skill. It is a term of the contract, not a separate promise, and it is the hook almost every defects complaint hangs on. Workmanship that a competent tradesperson would not have signed off is a breach of it.

s 50

What they told you is a term Every contract to supply a service is treated as including as a term anything said or written to the consumer, by or on behalf of the trader, about the trader or the service, if the consumer took it into account when deciding to enter into the contract or when making any decision about the service afterwards. The quotation, the WhatsApp message, the thing said on the doorstep about how long it would take. Subsection (2) makes all of that subject to anything that qualified it and was said on the same occasion, and to any change to it expressly agreed between you, before the contract or later. Subsection (3) goes further for a contract made at your home or at a distance: information the trader had to give you under regulations 9, 10 or 13 of the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 is a term as well, and under subsection (4) a change to that is not effective unless expressly agreed.

s 15

Fitted wrong is a fault in the goods Goods do not conform to a contract to supply goods if installation of the goods forms part of the contract, they are installed by the trader or under the trader’s responsibility, and they are installed incorrectly. Where the builder supplied and fitted the materials, that turns a bad installation into a non-conformity in the goods, which carries its own remedies under section 19(4): repair or replacement under section 23, and a price reduction or the final right to reject under section 24.

s 52

Within a reasonable time Where the contract does not fix the time for the service to be performed, and does not say how it is to be fixed, it is treated as including a term that the trader must perform within a reasonable time. What is reasonable is a question of fact. Where the contract did fix a date, this section does not apply: the date itself is the term, and missing it is an ordinary breach of contract.

s 51

A reasonable price Where the consumer has not paid a price, the contract does not fix one and does not say how it is to be fixed, the contract is treated as including a term that the consumer must pay a reasonable price and no more. All three have to be true, so a job with an agreed price, or one you have already paid for, is outside this section.

s 55

Repeat performance The right to require the trader to perform the service again, to the extent necessary to complete its performance in conformity with the contract. They must do it within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience to you, and must bear any necessary costs, including in particular the cost of any labour or materials. They cannot be required to do it where completing performance in conformity with the contract is impossible.

s 56

Price reduction The right to require the price to be reduced by an appropriate amount, which may be the whole of it, with a refund of anything already paid above the reduced amount. It becomes available where repeat performance is impossible, or where the trader has been required to repeat and has failed to do it within a reasonable time or without significant inconvenience. A refund must be given within 14 days beginning with the day the trader agrees you are entitled to it.

s 57

They cannot write it out of the contract A term is not binding on the consumer to the extent that it would exclude the trader’s liability under section 49, and subsection (4) goes further: a term is not binding to the extent that it would exclude or restrict a right or remedy for a liability under sections 49 to 52, make such a right or its enforcement subject to a restrictive or onerous condition, put you at a disadvantage for pursuing it, or exclude or restrict rules of evidence or procedure. The clause giving you seven days from handover to report anything lives here.

s 54

And everything else you already had The statutory remedies do not replace the ordinary ones. Section 54(6) and (7) preserve claiming damages, recovering money where the consideration has failed, specific performance, relying on the breach against a claim by the trader, and treating the contract as at an end. What you cannot do is recover twice for the same loss.

Before you send it

Give them the chance before you give it to someone else. The statutory remedy is that they come back and put it right at their own cost. Bringing in another contractor before they have had a fair opportunity, and a reasonable time, makes the cost much harder to recover, and hands them an argument about what the defect actually was. It can also shut a door you have not opened yet: trade body schemes generally will not look at a dispute once someone else has done the work, and the Federation of Master Builders says in terms that it cannot help where the work has been rectified or completed by another builder, and that its mediation is for cases where you are willing to have the member back.
The escalation routes have their own clocks, and they start now. They are shorter than the court ones and they usually run from your first written complaint rather than from the work. TrustMark, for instance, requires the complaint to reach the Dispute Resolution Ombudsman within twelve months of your initial complaint to the registered business, and after twelve weeks with no resolution you can go to that stage without waiting for a final response. The FMB asks you to have complained in writing and given the builder at least ten working days first, and will not look at work carried out more than six years ago. So put today’s date on this letter, keep it, and diary the scheme’s deadline the moment you know which scheme applies.
Photograph everything now. Before any making good, before anything is covered up, and with something in shot for scale. Keep the originals with their dates intact rather than screenshots of them.
Keep it to what you can show. Describe the symptom, its location and its size. Leave the diagnosis to whoever inspects it. A letter that overstates one item invites a reply that only deals with that item.
Send it so you can prove you sent it. Email and post together. Keep the sent copy, and note the date it went.
Send the papers with it, not after it. The quotation or contract, the invoices and receipts, the earlier messages, any report. In England and Wales the Practice Direction on Pre-Action Conduct and Protocols expects the parties to have exchanged enough information to understand each other’s position before a claim is issued, and lists disclosing key documents among the steps. Doing it in the first letter is not a concession, it is the thing that gets an answer to the items rather than an answer in general terms.
Say yes to mediation in writing. Paragraph 11 of that same Practice Direction warns that a party’s silence in response to an invitation to participate in alternative dispute resolution, or a refusal to participate, might be considered unreasonable by the court and could lead to the court ordering that party to pay additional court costs. That cuts both ways, so put your own willingness in the letter and keep the reply. Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate court rules, but the expectation that you tried first is much the same.
If something has been damaged, tell the insurers early. Water through a ceiling, a cracked slab, a burst pipe: your own buildings insurer usually wants to hear about damage promptly whether or not you end up claiming, and late notice is a standard reason for a claim to be argued about. Ask the builder to notify their own public liability insurer as well. That is a separate track from putting the work right, and it does not replace this letter.
Withholding money is a real right, used carefully. Section 54(7)(e) preserves the right to rely on the breach against a claim by the trader under the contract. Holding back a sum that fairly reflects the defects is defensible. Holding back the whole balance over one item is not, and it turns a defects argument into a payment argument that you did not need.
A serious defect deserves a survey. Structure, damp, drainage and anything involving a building control sign-off are worth a report from an independent surveyor or engineer before the letter goes, not after. It costs a few hundred pounds and it makes every sentence afterwards harder to argue with.
The card route runs in parallel. If you paid by credit card and the price was more than £100 and not more than £30,000, section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 makes the card provider jointly and severally liable with the trader for breach of contract. It does not replace this letter, but it is worth knowing about before the builder stops answering.

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 extends to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, so the sections cited in this letter apply wherever in the United Kingdom the work was done. What differs is what happens next. Court procedure is separate in each nation: the county court and its small claims track in England and Wales, simple procedure in the Scottish sheriff courts, and the small claims court in Northern Ireland. Time limits differ too. In England and Wales, and in Northern Ireland, an action founded on simple contract generally has to be brought within six years of the cause of action accruing. In Scotland the obligation is generally extinguished after five years by negative prescription, which is a shorter clock and it runs whether or not you have started.

These are starting points, not legal advice. A template has not seen the work, the contract or the specification, and it cannot tell whether what you are describing is a breach of the standard the law requires, a change you agreed to on site, or the ordinary tolerance of the material. Where the sums are significant, take the letter and the photographs to Citizens Advice, a surveyor or a solicitor before it goes out.

The defects letter

Templates are switched off at the moment

The sections the letter uses

Before you send it