Small Claims - Who do I bring case against?

Hi,

I got a contractor to do some paving work for me. He was recommended to me by the paving suppliers. He ordered the cement and sand etc from the suppliers and we gave him a cheque for the amount.
When we got the reciept from the suppliers it turns out he had put 180e worth of supplies from another job onto our bill.

We spoke to the suppliers who said we needed to speak to the contractor but the contractor, when he does answer our calls, has been saying for months that he'll drop the money over but hasn't

I'm thinking of taking a case in the small claims court.

Can someone advise if I should be taking the claim against the contractor or against the suppliers because we paid the cheque to them?

thanks

Sounds to me like your gripe is with the contractor.

ClubMan said:

Sounds to me like your gripe is with the contractor.

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I agree, but the only proof I have is a receipt which is made out to the paving suppliers.

Yes - but I don't see how the suppliers can be held culpable in this case.

I agree. The only way the supplier might be culpable is if they deliveredthe goods: If they delivered goods to another site it would arguably be remiss of them to invoice those goods to you, even if the contractor had told them to.

Thanks for the replies guys.

I'm not sure if they delivered but whoever delivered gave my wife the receipt which had the goods for the other job marked to be delivered there, but the cost hadn't been changed.

Really I just want my money back. I asked the supplier to refund and put it onto the contractors account but he wouldn't.

As far as I'm concerned this guy has stolen from me and even if I don't get my money back I'm going do everything I can to make his life difficult.

It sounds like it is the contractor who is liable, but from my reading of it you paid the contractor X to buy the goods from the supplier, which he did.

The goods were later delivered and you got a delivery receipt and discovered that you had been billed for someone elses goods (or in a way that goods you paid for were not delivered to you). This could be the fault of the supplier as they could have given the contractor the incorrect figure initially if he was ordering a lot of goods at once.

I would consider naming both parties in Small Claims Court proceedings. If the contactor is getting work through the supplier it may worry him that you are suing both and pay up.