Roofer wins legal case
A ROOFING contractor has won a long running legal fight against a Yorkshire businessman over unpaid bills.
Clifton Properties (Yorkshire), based in Batley, run by businessman Mike Smith who uses the company’s premises for his other venture, Mike’s Carpets, has been ordered to pay Stanningley-based Protech Roofing, represented by York-based lawyers, Denison Till, £30,000, plus £5,104 interest and £18,000 legal costs, after a two-day hearing at Huddersfield County Court.
The hearing heard that Mr Smith, who has appeared in TV adverts for Mike’s Carpets, declined to pay four invoices for work by Protech Roofing, run by managing director, David McLean, 41, and his wife Andrea, to repair storm damage at properties in Leeds and Batley in January 2007 as well as damage due to lead thefts and defective timbers, saying that he was not happy with the work two months after payment was requested.
The first three invoices resulted from written quotations and the fourth from a verbal agreement between Mr McLean and Clifton Properties (Yorkshire) company secretary, David Thewlis.
Mr Smith refused to pay Protech Roofing, even though the repairs had been signed off and a sum of £28,346 had been paid to Clifton Properties in full and final settlement of the claim, by his insurers in August 2007.
In his Judgment, Mr Recorder Miller, said that the defence in relation to the first three invoices was that Protech Roofing had failed to use “proper and reasonable skill” or materials “fit for their purpose”; that no fourth agreement was entered into and that several stained glass windows at the Armley premises were smashed due to Protech Roofing’s negligence.
Clifton Properties also claimed that it had reached full and final settlement with Protech Roofing when Mr Thewlis gave Mr McLean a £10,000 cheque on January 15 2008.
Mr Recorder Miller said that the only source of the claim that Protech Roofing damaged stained glass windows was in Mr Smith’s witness statement but he did not attend the trial and the defence decided not to rely upon it.
Also, documentation provided at the trial, and initialled by Mr Thewlis, on January 15, 2008, showed that he accepted that £10,000 was only a part payment towards the debt.
Protech Roofing, founded in 1996, has 10 employees and specialises in slating, tiling, lead work and specialist flat roof systems and operates throughout Yorkshire and the Humber.
Denison Till legal executive Emma Major, who handled the case, said: “It is a tribute to David McLean that, in spite of the worst recession for 50 years, he stuck to his guns and pursued Clifton Properties (Yorkshire) for this bad debt which was no way to treat a small enterprise which has acted in good faith.”
