Can anyone help me? You may have read how St John’s Concreting of Taylors Lakes damaged our garden bed and then abused me when I asked to talk to someone about it. They never showed up to repair the damage, as the guy on the phone said they would, by last weekend and no contact this week so I need to call them back.
Thing is I’m not sure what my next step is and I want to know before I make the call. If someone decides they can do what they want to your property and then ignore you what recourse do you have? Is there an ombudsmen, a dispute centre or is it (technically) criminal damage that I should be reporting?
Here’s a pic of what they have done. It may not look like much to you but they’ve gone a meter over the property line (that runs with the fence). They’ve dug our dirt, covered rocks with mud and pushed it all up. You’ll notice they had no problem not knocking down the existing fence.
So – any one out there know what I should be doing?
Again, it’s not the neighbour who is the problem here – it’s the contractor.
Consumer Affairs might be a good first port of call.
Thought 1/The company was contracted by your neighbour. Your dispute is primarily with your neighbour who hired the company. But you can’t expect the neighbour to do much more than make a phone call.
Thought 2/ Maybe it is not to do with the neighbour. It is incidental damage caused by a contractor while working on someone else’s place.
As Daniel said, Consumer Affairs will clarify your position. I have found them very helpful when fronting up to their office.
So sorry you have to deal with such a mess. Here, which is obviously no where near you, we have an entity called “license & inspection”. They issue permits for construction and major home improvements. They also inspect the finished work to make sure it is up to code. We could call them in a situation like this, where a contractor had done such shoddy work, or violated property lines. They can levy fines and force repairs. maybe you have something similar? Good luck.
Looking at what Sarcasmom has said, maybe the council who would have had to issue a permit for them to do this work, that might be the first point. A guy at work had to call consumer affairs for something not related to your situation and they were very helpful.
Seriously, I cannot believe they’ve done that much damage and aren’t scrambling to fix it! Didn’t realise the damage was that extensive. They’ve pretty much ruined the entire bed.
I would definitely suss out consumer affairs first.
Have you had a chat with your neighbour about it, T? Surely they’re aware of it (or need to be).
Andrew is right, it may not be personally your neighbour’s fault, but your neighbour should be the first port of call for you because the concreter was doing it for your neighbour. Your neighbour is the consumer, and if the concreter refuses to come and fix it up, your neighbour should be taking the point further. Your neighbour is the concreter’s customer, so if it was something the concreter was supposed to do for your neighbour, they are the ones to get in touch with consumer affairs, etc.
Ultimately, I think your neighbour is legally and personally responsible because the concreters were there exercising your neighbour’s right (if any) to access your property for the purpose of doing the concreting job. Even if your neighbour can also blame the concreter it must be up to your neighbour to fix it up as well as (if it is) up to the concreter. So in the end it is in your neighbour’s interests to do more than make a phone call and it will be up to you how far you want to go pursuing the concreter directly rather than putting this point to your neighbour.