Your builder says it’s fine. You think it isn’t.
Six photos, one disagreement, and a final payment nobody wants to release. This is what an independent builder says about each item — what is genuinely below standard, what is within normal tolerance, and how to raise it so it gets fixed.
Illustrative example, not a real customer’s job. The situation is typical and the numbers are the ranges we work to — but nobody’s quote, photos or address end up on a website.
Three of these six are fair criticism and one of them matters a lot. Two are within the tolerances any builder would work to, and arguing them will cost you goodwill you need for the ones that count. One is a design decision you signed off, not a defect. Put the three real items in one short written list with photos, offer to release the payment on completion of that list, and you will almost certainly get them done.
What you sent: Photo 1 — a puddle along the threshold the morning after rain.
This is the one that matters. Paving should fall away from the building, and the finished level should sit below the damp-proof course with a drainage channel if levels are tight. Standing water at a threshold is how you get a damp floor and a rotten door in three winters. This is not a tolerance question — it is the wrong way round and it needs lifting and re-laying, or a channel drain putting in.
Re-lay the affected bays or fit a channel drain: typically £600–£2,500
New mortar dries lighter and takes a year or two to weather in, so some difference is normal and unavoidable. What is not normal is a different joint profile next to the old work, and your photo 2 shows a bucket-handle joint against a weathered flush joint. Reasonable ask: rake and repoint the visible return so the profile matches. Colour, you live with.
Repoint the visible return: typically £300–£900
A visible line under low winter sun is one thing; a ridge you can feel with your hand is another, and the photo taken with a torch held flat to the ceiling shows the second. That is a tape and skim issue, not settlement. It is a half-day job now and a repaint later, so it is worth putting on the list.
Typically £200–£700 including making good the decoration
Timber moves, houses are not square, and a hairline gap that disappears when it is caulked and painted is what second-fix joinery looks like everywhere. A builder asked to fix this will do exactly what you could do with a tube of decorator’s caulk. I would let this one go.
Every trade works to a tolerance rather than to perfection — plastered walls are allowed a few millimetres of deviation over a couple of metres, and the same goes for level and plumb. Your photo shows the level rocking by a hair. If a wall needs to be dead flat because of the kitchen going on it, that is a spec you agree beforehand, at a price.
The opening matches the approved drawing you signed. That makes it a design regret rather than bad workmanship, and it is worth separating the two in your own head before you write to anyone — mixing them together is the fastest way for a builder to dismiss the whole list.
- Write one short list of the three real items, each with the photo attached and what you want done — not how you feel about it.
- Say what you will do on completion: release the retained payment within a set number of days of the last item being signed off.
- Give a reasonable date, and ask for a date back in writing.
- Keep paying for anything not in dispute — withholding everything weakens your position.
- If it stalls, ask whether the builder is a member of a trade body with a complaints route, and take advice on your options before you spend money on a report.