Cowboy Builders

[BryanH]

I very stupidly paid a builder nearly the entire agreed price for an extension to my house then surprise surprise he suddenly stopped showing up. After months of trying to contact him and being completely ignored I took him to court for about �8000.00 (roughly the cost to finish the job, plus a bit more). Anyway, he never replied and I got a default judgment last week. I've now applied for a charging order on his house which he owns with his partner. I don't expect any objections to this from him and i'm confident that an interim charging order will be granted within the next few weeks, and then a final order after that.

I don't know how much, if any, equity he has in his property so I've done everything myself to keep costs down. If at the end he hasn't any money I don't want to have thrown too much good money after bad.

Which finally get me to my questions, assuming I get the Final Charging Order;

1) How do I apply for an "order for sale" and how much is the application fee?

2) Is this something I have to have a solicitor for, or can I do it myself?

3) If I do it myself, what are the total costs involved?

4) Any other advice?

I've look on the HMCS site and the advice seems to stop once after saying you can apply for an "Order for Sale" but then nothing else.

He's had many people chasing him for money so baillifs and third party orders aren't really an option also he's working cash in hand so doesn't even have an employer to go after.

Many thanks for any help!

[123everton]

See if you can sell the debt to to baliffs, if you have a judgement for �8000 they might offer to buy it off you for around �5000 or �6000.