Nearly £3.7 billion has been paid out to repair botched jobs carried out across the UK by “cowboy” tradesmen in the last five years, a new survey has claimed.
According to research by Sainsbury’s Home Insurance, 13 per cent of people (6.2 million) have fallen foul of dodgy traders over the same period, with costs to repair the damage running at an estimated £737 million a year.
Plumbers, the research claims, have proved to be the biggest cause of distress, with an estimated 1.4 million people having suffered because of poor-quality work since 2019.
Those who have employed a “cowboy” trader in the last five years paid an average of £2,077 for the work that was intially carried out.
On top of this amount they had to pay nearly £600 to either repair the damage or complete the unfinished job.
Over 150,000 people are estimated to have paid over £5,000 to rectify a botched job.
Ben Tyte, head of Sainsbury’s Home Insurance, said: “We’re concerned that so many homeowners have to rectify poor workmanship carried out by people they’ve employed in good faith to work in their homes.
“It’s completely unacceptable that the remedial costs are exceeding £700 million. Of course the burden isn’t just financial; there can be a great deal of personal stress attached to these difficult situations including the clean up and often confrontation.”
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