If a plumber fails to fix and refuses to without more payment, which law is he violating?

If it is the same leak, OR a new leak which was clearly created as a consequence of the way that he repaired the first leak, then you have a claim in law.

The relavant law is Part II, section 13 of the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982.

This is an extract from that part of the Act:

"Implied term about care and skill.

In a contract for the supply of a service where the supplier is acting in the course of a business, there is an implied term that the supplier will carry out the service with reasonable care and skill."

This means that the plumber must NOT put any sort of "exclusion clause" in his terms and conditions of business if that clause seems to excuse poor workmanship or use of the wrong quality of matierials for the job. This means that in the real world a leak repair should last longer than one hour.

In other words: it is illegal to charge a second time for fixing a fault that should have been fixed properly in the first place.

The law also contains a clause (section 14) which means that he must return in a reasonable time to fix the fault. This means that he can not prevaricate and put you off for weeks before returning. This is what section 14 says:

"Implied term about time for performance.

(1) Where, under a contract for the supply of a service by a supplier acting in the course of a business, the time for the service to be carried out is not fixed by the contract, left to be fixed in a manner agreed by the contract or determined by the course of dealing between the parties, there is an implied term that the supplier will carry out the service within a reasonable time.

(2) What is a reasonable time is a question of fact."

The "fact" referred to as a "reasonable time" is what a court would consider a "reasonable person" to consider. So a reasonable person would consider that the repair of a plumbing fault should be done within days rather than weeks.

If the plumber does not come and fix this leak without charge and in a reasonable time (days) then you have the right to call in a new plumber to fix the fault. You can read the law at the link below.

But you MUST say that you'll do this when you contact the first plumber to ask for him to come back, and also tell him that you will be claiming for the cost of new plumber and require a refund of money paid for the faulty job.

All of this correspondence must be done by letter, preferably recorded delivery, (not phone call and preferably not email) and you MUST keep copies. Reasons given below.

If the first plumber refuses to return then you then have the right to sue him for the cost of getting a second plumber in to fix the fault AND for return of the payment that you handed over for the "first job".

You can do this by using the ".gov" internet site for Making a Money Claim On Line. This uses the Small Claims Track of your local county court. Do NOT use any of the third-party internet sites (eg. makeaclaim.co) which purport to do this for you - they charge a fortune and you stil have to provide the same information.

It's an inexpensive and simple way of suing someone without involving solicitors. You MUST have all the details of phone conversations and copies of bills, appointments, receipts, documents and letters when you make the claim because this is evidence that the court will need.

It won't be full-court performance with a jury and bewigged barristers for a claim like yours, in fact you probably won't have to attend at all. It is likely that the "hearing" will be a judge alone based on reading the documents you submit and the defence that the plumber submits.

This process does not apply if the new leak is geniunely independant of the first leak that you paid him to fix.

More specifics please… Did the fix stop working after an hour? Did he just stop the leak, and now he wants more money to actually repair the damage? What did you instruct him to do? "fix the leak" doesn't mean clean up the water damage.

Generally, repairs are no guarantee that you won't have more problems. Other than any warranty offered by the company, there is no law that says they must come out again for free. This is more an issue of customer service and business reputability than it is a legal question.

You are making it sound like he repaired what you wanted him to do and you did not let hem repair the job correctly. So now if this in the case he did not do anything wrong and does not have to repair without more cost. I bet the told you this to start with. You left to to much detail here to make me think you are not the problem. Now you can sue him but without much more proof than given here you will lose big times.

None.

None.