I was listening to Radio 2 this afternoon, and my ears pricked up when I heard the story of a builder who received permission from his local council to remove a conservatory from a house where the customer hadn’t paid up.

nigel gray demolishing a porch

In this particular case, the property was a council house, hence the perturbed builder was able to approach the council and leverage their support.  The customer was not unhappy with her conservatory, she just didn’t want to pay the £15,000 for it!  And, she used numerous lies and tactics, such as stating her husband had recently died, in order to avoid payment.

I’m sure all owners of window and conservatory companies have come across ‘rogue customers’.  We hear so much about rogue traders and cowboy builders, it’s about time we hear stories about awkward, cheating customers who try all sorts of tactics to avoid payment, or delay payment.

The stress these ‘rogue customers’ can cause to owners and employees of conservatory and window companies cannot be underestimated.  Many companies just give in to avoid further hassle.  It is no coincidence that on Adminbase (software for window companies) there is a ‘bastard’ button, which flags up very bad customers so the company knows never to deal with them again.

From listening to the callers to this Radio 2 show, there was a lot of support for the extreme actions of this builder.

In my experience 99% of customers are fair, and have every intention of paying on time when the job is finished satisfactorily.  But for the 1% of rogue customers, I believe that companies should stand their corner as the law and the public are on their side.