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Government set to clamp down on rogue builders
00:00 13 Oct 1999
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by Tim Wood
Radical proposals to give trading standards officers the power and resources to convict rogue builders have been put forward by the Government.
The move by the consumer affairs minister Kim Howells follows a damning investigation by the BBC's Crime Squad programme into rogue builders who target the elderly. It is hoped that Howells' action will lead to a reduction in the 100,000 complaints made against cowboy builders every year.
Undercover reporters revealed how a building company in Leeds told its employees to make a minimum charge of £3,600 regardless of the size of the job and insisted the customers always paid in advance. The firm was also alleged to have quoted £4,500 for a repair that cost £50 and demanded £27,000 to treat a listed building when the actual cost of the work was closer to £700.
Howells commented: "You've got to give trading standards officers, the police and everybody else the resources and the legal right to get in and nail them before they operate these scams because there will always be vulnerable people for them to prey on. At the moment you've got to chase it through the civil courts and that costs money. It depends on us getting legislative time but I'm pretty sure that we're going to get it because this is another feature of rip-off Britain."
The Department of Trade and Industry has since closed down the company, which was not identified on the programme, following an application to the courts.
l Two builders from Birmingham have been jailed for ripping off five pensioners. Robert Sheridan, 44, was given a four-year sentence and Thomas Forbes, also 44, was given three years four months, after being found guilty of tricking their victims out of sums ranging from £2,450 to £27,300, netting a total of £45,000. The pair, who had used the trading names Dr Guttering and Drips 'R' Us, had no building qualifications.
Radical proposals to give trading standards officers the power and resources to convict rogue builders have been put forward by the Government.
The move by the consumer affairs minister Kim Howells follows a damning investigation by the BBC's Crime Squad programme into rogue builders who target the elderly. It is hoped that Howells' action will lead to a reduction in the 100,000 complaints made against cowboy builders every year.
Undercover reporters revealed how a building company in Leeds told its employees to make a minimum charge of £3,600 regardless of the size of the job and insisted the customers always paid in advance. The firm was also alleged to have quoted £4,500 for a repair that cost £50 and demanded £27,000 to treat a listed building when the actual cost of the work was closer to £700.
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Howells commented: "You've got to give trading standards officers, the police and everybody else the resources and the legal right to get in and nail them before they operate these scams because there will always be vulnerable people for them to prey on. At the moment you've got to chase it through the civil courts and that costs money. It depends on us getting legislative time but I'm pretty sure that we're going to get it because this is another feature of rip-off Britain."
The Department of Trade and Industry has since closed down the company, which was not identified on the programme, following an application to the courts.
l Two builders from Birmingham have been jailed for ripping off five pensioners. Robert Sheridan, 44, was given a four-year sentence and Thomas Forbes, also 44, was given three years four months, after being found guilty of tricking their victims out of sums ranging from £2,450 to £27,300, netting a total of £45,000. The pair, who had used the trading names Dr Guttering and Drips 'R' Us, had no building qualifications.
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