It is not uncommon to read of builders trying to con people out of money, especially the aged in the worst accounts people have been left in a terrible mess when the builder walks away with their money and unfinished work.
I never expected something like that to happen in this little valley where everyone knows just about everyone and everything that is going on, for a builder to try and con the elderly.
In this case he chose the wrong couple two professional people who have spent a lifetime keeping records, myself as a retired Architectural Designer out of habit retaining records of design and building works, for five years up until recently writing a weekly column of up to a thousand words in the Leader Newspaper, memory of events are very clear, let me explain what happened.
During one of the recent storms part of our retaining wall was washed away, we phoned this building firm which is well known in the valley, I am tempted to name them here, but I won’t, but dear reader if you are curious and would like to know their name perhaps they have tried the same thing on others then WhatsApp me and I will reveal.
So, the boss of this outfit arrives and before he looks at the problem, he says, “I can’t start working here until I am paid nineteen hundred Euros what you owe for previous work”.
I was stunned and looked at him in disbelief. When pressed what work he mumbled on about painting the house and fitting the pool in 2006 also laying paving slabs.
He also said he had registered the debt and when the house was sold he would get paid, of course we would know about that and it has not happened.
We were the first expats to live in this charming location twenty-six years ago. I can remember this building firm arriving as we printed business cards for them, a small business we ran when we had been here seven or eight years.
The detached house we bought at that time was virtually new and we have lived in it since, but for some patches that have needed tidying carried out by Saul our odd job man who has been with us for about eighteen years, they were mainly damp patches and at one time a young child had used crayon on a wall, the house has never been painted although dear Ken who left us nine year ago (RIP) did decorate the lounge ceiling in 2008.
We still have the receipt for The swimming pool and its construction by a firm called Hienz who moved his team in and lived in a caravan on site while they carried out the work in October 2001.
It is possible for us to name others who have carried out work and not one of them has not been paid. In fact in that period it was payday on Friday for work completed that week.
We complete daily financial matters and again out of habit any invoice we are presented with is paid promptly no waiting to the end of the month but promptly … we do not owe anybody anything.
We wrote to this building outfit asking for full details of the money they say is outstanding and if we concurred, we would pay them, that was three months ago and they haven’t replied, or in other words their claim is a moody con. Take care!
