ANGRY customers have slammed a “cowboy builder” who they claim took thousands of pounds for shoddy work.
Michael Brennan has been slammed on social media for reportedly leaving his punters in the lurch with their renovations in Preston.
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The owner of Ruby Constructions and Renovations Ltd claims that he has “lost everything” because of the claims – which he says have been “blown out of proportion”.
Brendan Conlin, 56, paid the company to build an extension to the side of his home for £12,400, which he agreed to pay in three stages.
Work began in November last year, but Brendan realised that there were issues with the work and called a building inspector out.
He told LancsLive: “He very very quickly had the cement laid and I said to him ‘surely you need to be getting the building inspector out to look at these before you lay the cement’.
“He said ‘no no it’s all alright I’ve sent pictures to him and he’s happy with the pictures and said we can continue’.
“I’m not a builder but I used to be in the building trade – I said to him you’ve laid the cement but where’s the drain pipes.
“He said ‘when the concrete’s dried we can cut the channel out and bury the pipe in’ I thought surely not.
“I rang the building inspector, and said ‘no I’ve not heard from the builder, I do need to come out and inspect it before he pours the concrete’, I said you’re a bit late for that.”
Once the building inspector arrived, he told Brendan that the current work needed to be ripped out before any other construction.
He had already paid the first instalment to Mr Brennan, and told him that he no longer wanted him to undergo the work before asking for his money back.
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While waiting for the cash, Brendan posted about his experience on social media in an attempt to “name and shame” the company.
Following his post other customers made several other allegations against Mr Brennan and his company.
Luke Parkinson, 39, hired the building firm in July last year for an extension costing £20,000 to be paid in three sections.
He claims that initially the work was fine, with an additional payments of £800 being paid because of an issue with the pipework.
All three payments were made to the company after they saw some progress, but after reaching out to a building inspector they were also told there were a number of faults.
Luke said: “The first day we was back he was asking for the second payment and stupidly, we looked at it and thought well yeah he’s gone to a certain height, so we paid the second payment but I think it was the very next day- our brother-in-law came around.
“He took a look at the brickwork and he said- because his dad is a bricklayer – he said there’s something wrong with that bricklaying.
“I stopped him that evening and we gave him about two weeks to try and pay something back. But two weeks went past and nothing had come back from Michael.
“We’re at a point now that even if we do something, it might be that we can only do the driveway.
“We’ve possibly lost too much money to go for the extension that we wanted to do- for me, he needs to be stopped.”
‘ABSOLUTELY APPALLING’
Another customer claims that she’s been left with no kitchen since November last year, and lost £11,000 in the process after agreeing to pay £15,400 for the whole job.
Paul Goodall, speaking on behalf of the family, claimed he was told by Mr Brennan that he only “does one job at a time.”
He said: “He (Mr Brennan) said I won’t leave you without a kitchen for long.
“Christmas came and went and the build started going slower and slower, eventually I went along and had a look at the build work after he put the roof on and it just didn’t look right when I went along.
“I took my spirit level and tape measure and we started measuring and looking at the quality of the work and it was awful, absolutely appalling, none of the walls were perpendicular- the brickwork was up and down, there was no wall ties, it just didn’t seem right.”
He gave the company seven days to refund the money, but claims they never did and they had to destroy the construction and start again.
Paul added: “Not only financially are we out about £15,000 – my stepdaughter has got a five-year-old, and expecting, and she’s had no kitchen since the middle of November.
“It’s been so stressful, absolutely unbelievably stressful for everybody really to try and deal with this person who says all sorts of lies, it’s just been one lie on top of the other.”
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On March 18 2022, Mr Brennan says he signed the documents to strike off his company, Ruby Constructions and Renovations Ltd, because of the allegations.
Responding to the allegations, Mr Brennan said: “I didn’t deserve that, losing business, not a problem but to lose your wife and boys is not good.
“As far as building goes, that’ll never happen again, I’ve lost friends, family kids, everything, absolutely everything.
“To have everything taken away in less than two days, and for that, I’ll never forgive Brendan Conlin and Luke Parkinson.
“They’ve shot themselves in the foot with all this stuff on Facebook because now – if it ever went to court, and the business shut down, they’re not going to get anything at all. They should’ve let me carry on working and just let me crack on.
“My customers left me in a week, I lost over £100,000 in a week. It’s not a case of I’ve took this money and I can’t pay it back that’s not true – there’s only two times that has happened one of them is Luke Parkinson and the other is Brendan Conlin.
I couldn’t do the work because people had savaged me.
Michael Brennan
“I spread myself too thin, I was on loads of different jobs and then one day he says right I’m going to stop the job, I don’t want you to do it
“Same with Luke Parkinson, one day he rang up, stopped the job, he said, ‘I’m not happy with the build, brickwork’s rubbish’ and I said ‘right, no problem’.
“They’re the only two that wanted the stage payments back, everyone else, I lost because of these two.
“It’s just blown out of proportion. Half the people want to kill me and hate me and the other half say I don’t believe this is you.
“Even the customers say you’re one of the nicest guys we’ve met, you’re just a crap builder that’s it pure and simple.
“I’ve stopped building, I don’t build anymore. They’ve caused me more amount of problems, it ain’t going to go away for a long time.
“Her dad (Paul) intervened actually, this is what I mean, it’s absolute rubbish. Her dad intervened and basically went ‘if you haven’t done this work by blah blah blah, you’re off the job’.
“I couldn’t do the work because people had savaged me so he then took over and I think he’s finished it off don’t know.”
All of the customers affected claim that they gave Mr Brennan time to refund their money, which he never did, and were shocked that the builder had blamed them.
Brendan said: “He had no intentions of paying us back. How he can blame it on us, I don’t get that, yeah I’ve cost him a lot of business but nothing more than he was already doing in the first place.”
Luke responded: Michael had previous chances – on the evening he stopped I said to him I doubt you will pay me and he said no give me a few weeks, we did give a few weeks and we never heard anything.”
Paul added: “All I’m saying is he’s totally wrong, he promised money back on the phone and intervened because there was so much wrong.”
