Help!Rip off Builders stole Granny’s money

Hi, I’m Jermaine & my wife is Adele.

We care for my 92yr old Grandmother Claudia, who has Dementia. She lives with us & our children in our family home.

She grew up in St Vincent in the Caribbean & came over to England as part of the Windrush era. She lived an incredibly independent & full life in London as a seamstress, then a cook at a nursery. A strong member of the community, a Mum to 5 children, a lover of dance, music & laughter.

Diagnosed with dementia in 2018, she’s now not able to live alone. My family are honoured to care for her & very much enjoy hearing all her stories & memories of days gone by. Dementia is such a cruel illness, it’s heartbreaking when her mind stops her being the women she was. We want to make her as comfortable as possible.

We made the decision to have her stay with us so she could be part of family life.

We got a brilliant Architect to plan the best layout possible to adapt our home, he also gave us suggestions for building firms he uses.

Unfortunately they were out of budget. Granny offered to help us by lending us some of her life savings. It still wasn’t enough to use the architects suggested firms but it was enough to do the majority of the plan, and most importantly make the place safe and practical for Granny.

We decided to put the word out and search ourselves.

We found local Solihull based builders to make home improvements to create a safe & private downstairs bedroom & shower room for Granny; we currently don’t have this & she can’t climb the stairs. This means moving our existing kitchen out into our garage to make space for her area so we can continue to care for her at home.

We spoke with the builders who are a family run business and they were empathetic. We told them our situation and what we hoped for granny and our family.

We visited a project they were currently doing in Solihull. We did our checks & signed the contract. One of the builders used to work with Adele’s cousin who sadly lost his life far too young in 2018. We thought it was a good link and that we would be in safe hands. A deposit was paid, work was to commence May 15th.

After a delay, the builders dug foundations late May, built 2 walls & stripped part of the roof which took approximately 2wks. We paid for 2 stages of work. They have since been off the job for 11wks with either excuses or a simple lack of communication. They owe us work or money.

The garage is exposed so it rains inside on electrics. The footings are open & dangerous, there is building rubbish including planks with nails all over the garden. It’s all hazardous & we are no closer to getting the space how Granny needs it to be.

After sharing our concerns online, we have since discovered this is the same story for 5 other homeowners & counting! It seems this is a well rehearsed con & we are devastated.

We have found new builders via the Architect. But, Granny has lost £10000 to the cowboy builders & our budget will not cover what’s needed to rectify & then move forwards. Our fear is this goes into winter or simply can’t get completed.

Any help towards getting this back on track & finished for Granny would mean the world to us & more importantly her.

Thank you in advance, Jermaine.