Trading Standards bosses have launched an investigation into a building company that has gone bust leaving customers thousands of pounds out of pocket and their properties in ruins.
Nova Building and Developments Ltd in Weymouth, Dorset, faced complaints from nine customers about the state their homes were left in.
One customer said he lost £30,000 on a bodged single-storey extension that had to be demolished and rebuilt.
A woman who spent £112,000 on a loft conversion and wraparound extension has been unable to live in the home for 11 months as it remains a ‘shell’.
Another customer said Nova told her it would take four months to complete a project on her home but had to sack the firm after ten months of ‘poor workmanship and broken promises.’
Trading Standards officials have launched an investigation into a building company that has gone bust leaving customers thousands of pounds out of pocket and their properties in ruins
Nova Building and Developments Ltd in Weymouth, Dorset, faced complaints from nine customers about the state their homes were left in
Nova has now gone into liquidation, owing 18 creditors a total of almost £300,000
Piles of rubble and waste building material has been left outside customers’ homes
Nikki Armstrong (left) and Jayne Eagles (right) say their home was left ‘unliveable for months’ and was ‘ruined’ by Nova
Nova has now gone into liquidation, owing 18 creditors a total of £292,257.00 – including more than £120,000 to HMRC.
But the nine customers – who have formed a Whatsapp group to share their grievances – claim the company raked in £500,000 from them in payments for unfinished jobs.
Dorset Council’s Trading Standards is now investigating the company after Dorset Police said it wasn’t a criminal matter.
One customer, Jayne Eagles, said her three bed semi-detached house has been ‘unlivable for months’ despite paying out over £100,000 for a wraparound extension.
Building materials were left behind beside scaffolding on people’s homes. The collapse of Nova has left people out of pocket
The company has faced a flurry of complaints from customers complaining of ‘unfinished’ jobs and ‘over a year of frustration’
She said: ‘The work started in January 2022 and should have finished in August at a cost of £160,000. The first six weeks were fine but after that nothing happened and it was excuse after excuse.
‘We were asked to pay the next lot of payments so materials could be bought and the job could continue. Nova kept saying they were getting the labourers in and the job would take off next week but nothing.
‘We used to go onto the site and it was a horrifying thought at what we might see.
‘We have spent £112,000 and all we have to show for it after 11 months is a loft conversion. The rest of the house is a dry shell.
One shocking image shows a concrete floor half dug up, and tools that were left behind by the firm
Images shared on social media show the carnage that was left behind when the firm closed its doors for good
Some properties have been left with work half finished, including this image of a leaking ceiling
One image shows a pile of rubble and bricks that has been left outside a customer’s home
‘We have been displaced for 11 months. Fortunately we have an Airbnb which we have been living in but that has cost us thousands of pounds in lost income as well.’
Steve Taylor spent £30,000 on a single storey flat roof extension for his dementia suffering wife.
He said he had to get another firm in to ‘completely start again’ following Nova’s original work.
He said: ‘I’m no builder but I’m also not an idiot: things clearly weren’t being done as we were told they would be and it was pretty obvious we weren’t going to get the quality expected.
‘Things started off okay but quickly deteriorated.’
Another customer, called Emma, said her ‘life had been put on hold’ and said, whilst 95 per cent of the work had been completed, she brought in new builders after a leak emerged from the chimney.
She said: ‘Our whole life has been put on hold, we’ve had to live with our mum for the past five months and we’ve got three children so it has affected us all.
Some customers were left with piles of rubble and rubbish in the gardens of their unfinished homes
Angry customers released images of the unfinished work, which many have claimed cost them more money to fix
One image even showed a ceiling with multiple holes and tears in it, showing the extent of the unfinished property
Customers shared images of work inside their properties which included bare brick walls which had been left unattended to
Other customers were left with piles of rubbish and debris from the construction work in their gardens
‘We were patient for too long but it was months and months of frustration.’
A spokesperson for Nova Building claimed they had been forced out of business by negative comments about their work.
They blamed ‘repeated challenges in sourcing materials and labourers’ as a result of the pandemic and Brexit and said many projects were completed without issues.
The spokesperson said: ‘Like many businesses we started to struggle with rising costs over the past year but we were coping. Deadlines weren’t always able to be met because of these issues but this was communicated with our clients at all times.
‘A lot of the work was subcontracted and we had people on site that we thought we could trust and we did trust them but, in some cases, things could have gone better.
In a statement of affairs, liquidators revealed the firm owed 18 creditors a total of £292,257
Images shared online show the mess that was left behind by the firm, which has since folded
Shocking pictures show the mess left behind by Weymouth based Nova Building and Development Ltd, including rubble piled high outside properties
‘We were paying workers for a full day of work and quite often they would be clocking off early: these are issues that we didn’t always know about.
‘We are confident that if we were allowed to finish the work in the cases highlighted then there would have been no issues.
‘A lot of claims have been made on social media about the company – some have been completely outlandish – and that has contributed to us having to liquidate. We have lost business as a result of a hate campaign and it left us with nothing.
‘We have received an awful lot of support from clients, friends and family that know we would not rip anyone off and we would always complete a job to the best of our ability.
‘We have been harassed, and in some cases threatened, which crosses the line.’
Trading Standards confirmed they were aware of one outstanding complaint regarding the company and were ‘looking into’ the circumstances.
