Our Story
We employed Danny Vigor of Vigor Build in May of this year (2016) after we accepted his quote to do the complete refurbishment of our property in South West London. Danny told us the work would take 6 months to complete and we planned to be in our new home by the end of November, well in time for Christmas.
We became suspicious that all was not well around mid October, 5 months into our 6 month contract. It was clear by this point that progress had slowed dramatically over the previous 3-4 weeks. Also, given the terms of our contract, we had already paid him around 80% of the total amount quoted for the work and yet this was clearly not reflected in the state of the property. Unfortunately these 3-4 weeks coincided with family holidays and illnesses which meant we were not able to keep tabs on the progress as much as we had previously.
Danny Vigor Cash flow problems
When questioned, Vigor kept saying he needed the cash flow to finish the work, at times pleading with us for the agreed weekly amount to be paid but as we were simply not seeing any progress on site we decided to withhold further payments until things changed. This quickly escalated when we were contacted by the previous electrician who told us he was owed a significant sum of money for work to our property. Danny had told us he had stopped dealing with him as he was difficult to work with. As we spoke to further sub-contractors it was clear this was a common problem.
We gave Danny a week to get material on site and show progress. When this didn’t materialise we terminated the contract but not before we had more pleading telephone calls from him.
£20 – 30k cannot be accounted for by Vigor Build
In the following weeks he tried to take materials back from the site which we had paid for, claiming they were his. As we spent more time with the tradesmen it became clear his approach to our build was not unique and he had cut corners on many other builds. It also became clear that the material costs he had provided us with were complete fabrications. As an example, we now know for sure after dealing directly with the installer that the cost of the steel installations were actually approximately half of what he had told us when trying to justify where our money had been spent.
By our calculations to date, we believe we have anywhere between £20 – 30k that cannot be accounted for. And you can see that state of the property as he left it in the photos. We believe our money was used to finish other projects he was working on at the same time.
Vigor’s corner cutting has since cost us more in tradesmen time and material as they were unable to complete a number of tasks due to the way they were left, such as difficulty in removing the original house lintels as floor joists had already been installed, completing the roof as he would not provide them enough scaffolding and having to bolster the floor joists that had been laid because he hadn’t provided the correct size or timber for the strength required.
We have reported Vigor Build to the Ombudsman and hopefully we shall see some of our problems resolved. However, we would hate for anyone to go through what has become a stressful, traumatic experience so please…
DO NOT USE THIS BUILDER
Danny Vigor of Vigor Build
Carrana Construction
Danny Vigor Construction