If there have been delays in completing the work by your builder, you should tell your builder, in writing, that you will cancel the contract unless the work is finished within a stated period. If you would like to make a complaint about delays in building work, you can use our complaint about delays in building work letter. This letter will demand that your builder complete the work within the period you specify - the time stated has to be reasonable and have regard for the terms of any contract.

If the builder has still not completed the work within the specified period after you have sent the 'Complaint about delays in building work letter' then your next step is to cancel your contract with the builder and advise your builder that you will be obtaining estimates from others to complete the work. To do this, you can use our Letter terminating contract for incomplete building work. This letter will terminate your contract with the builder and warn your builder that you will be looking to them for any costs in employing a new builder to complete the unfinished work.

Once you have obtained estimates from other builders to complete the work, use our Letter enclosing estimates from new builder. This letter will detail each of the estimates which you have obtained from the builder and the estimate which you have accepted. Again the builder will be told that you will look to him/her to pay the costs when the work is completed.

Once you have followed the process detailed above, and your new builder has completed the work left unfinished by your original builder, you can use our letter Demand original builder to pay costs of new builder to complete work. This letter will put a financial value on the work left outstanding by your original builder.

If your outlay in employing the new builder is greater than the amount which you would have had to pay your original builder to complete the work, you can use this letter to demand that your original builder pay these costs. If the builder does not pay these costs, then you can take the matter to county court within the time period you have specified in the letter to attempt to recover your costs. Alternatively you may decide that you would prefer to write the matter off to put an end to the matter, you can choose to do this using this letter.

If your outlay is less than what you would have paid your original builder then the letter will not demand any money, but will state that all matters between you and your builder are now at a close.

If you have any kind of credit agreement, think carefully and take legal advice before you withhold payments as your future credit rating could be affected.

If you paid by credit card or the work is being financed by a credit agreement arranged by the trader, the lender is jointly liable with the trader for any breach of contract (if the work costs between £100 and £30,000). Tell the lender if there is a dispute.

If the work done is defective in any way you are entitled to ask the contractor to make good the defective work.

The first step is to ask the supplier of the service to put things right. You can request your builder to fix the defects in their job by using our request that faulty building work be fixed letter. It will be up to you, the customer, to determine upon the facts whether 10 or 14 days or any other number of days is reasonable to complete the work satisfactorily.

If your builder does not put the matter right in the time you have allotted to them, you are entitled to employ another contractor. Once you have accepted estimates from your new builder, you can use our Letter enclosing estimates to fix faulty building work which will tell your original builder what estimates you have accepted to fix the faulty building work and also that you will be looking to him/her in due course to recover your costs.

Once your new builder has completed the work, you can then use our Demand original builder pay costs of new builder. The letter warns that if your builder does not pay, that you will be forced to recover your costs in county court.

If a builder's quotation is accepted by a customer, the customer is not obliged to pay the greater amount and is within his/her rights to send a cheque for the agreed amount as accepted by the customer. The builder will be unsuccessful in pursuing a claim for the greater sum. A quotation may be accepted by firstly marking it with the word 'accepted', secondly signing and dating it and finally, returning it to the builder.

If for some reason the bill is greater than what was quoted to you by the builder, pay only what you agreed upon. If you would like to refuse the builder's bill because it was greater than the quote price, use our refuse a bill greater than the builder's quote letter.

If in spite of letters and telephone calls, the complaint has not been resolved, you should consider getting in touch with the trade association or professional body the supplier might belong to. Such bodies have codes of practice that are not legally binding but set the standard of quality consumers can expect from their members. In addition they have conciliation or arbitration schemes, which can be used to resolve disputes between consumers and their members.

To be able to use the NHBC conciliation service, there must be present a house purchaser's agreement which is an agreement that sets out the contract between the house builder and the house purchaser. This agreement gives the house purchaser or house buyer certain rights against the builder who is also selling the property. It is only when this document, which is produced in duplicate, is exchanged between the two parties that the NHBC Scheme comes into operation.

Under the NHBC Scheme, the builder gives an undertaking to make good, during the first two years of the purchase of the property, any defects attributable to the builder and anything not complying with the required standard of workmanship. In addition, the builder will make all major structural defects good without cost to the purchaser for the next eight years.

If conciliation does not work, you can take the dispute to arbitration if such a scheme is available. Arbitrations involve an expert in the relevant field whose decision is final.

Bear in mind though that you must choose between arbitration and going to court. If, having chosen arbitration, you are not happy with the decision of the arbitrator, you cannot then go to court. You should note however that any clause in a contract which forces you to go to arbitration when the dispute is for a sum of less than the small claim limit of £ 5000 is not legally binding.

The trade associations for the main trades are as follows:

Buildmark House

Chiltern Avenue

Amersham

HP6 5AP

Tel: 01494 434477

Fax: 01494 728521

web: http://www.nhbc.co.uk

Gordon Fisher House

14-15 Great James Street

London

WC1N 3DP

Tel:020 7242 7583

Fax:020 7404 0296

Web address: http://www.fmb.org.uk

1 Elmwood, Chineham Business Park

Crockford Lane

Basingstoke RG24 8WG

Tel:01256 372300

http://www.corgi-gas.com

44 – 48 Borough High Street

London SE1 1XB

Tel:0207 403 7177

http://www.ggf.org.uk