Charged for work not done
We recently obtained a County Court Judgement with full costs against Canterbury Fireplaces,Blackburn, England for charging us for work that they did not do.
We contracted them to build a media wall and install one of their fires at our home in September 2025
The owner completed a Free of charge survey including measuring for the media wall (which we later discovered he got horribly wrong.) We paid the deposit and then some additional monies and he asked us to pay his Canterbury fitters direct in cash.
Part way through the build we discovered that Canterbury Fireplaces had outsourced the build and installation to a completely different company without our knowledge and consent which also contravened their own terms and conditions. On penultimate day of the build, the fitters left after removing their protective sheets and we discovered that the carpet (which had been rolled back) was three inches short of the media wall. When contacted the fitter said that he was working to the measurements given to him by the owner of Canterbury Fireplaces. This led to additional building work having to be carried out and could have turned out to be a very expensive mistake had we not spotted it.
Throughout the build and for weeks after the owner of Canterbury Fireplaces never once contacted us to discuss his measuring error or to see if we were satisfied with the media wall. Canterbury Fireplaces had in fact only supplied the fire; the build and installation of the fire had been done by the other company. We sent Canterbury Fireplaces numerous emails asking for a breakdown of the costs which the owner consistently refused to do. We reluctantly decided to take him to court, he declined any mediation or an attempt to resolve the issue at an initial hearing before a judge. At the full hearing he produced a doctored invoice. Fortunately, we had the original invoice and produced it to the judge for comparison. The judge found in our favour and the owner was given a date to pay us the amount plus costs but failed to do so and only paid when we said that we would take out an enforcement warrant for bailiffs to attend his showroom.
Be very careful if you choose to deal with this company