Dont pay CASH and the reasons why!!!
If a builder say’s he will do a deal on cash to avoid the VAT…BEWARE!!! even though at first it might sound tempting to save £4,000 to £5,000 off the price. If he/they have said it to you they would have definitely said it to other clients. This means that the builder/company is a risk to you and your property.
The VAT are all over this industry and are closing companies down all over the country because of VAT fraud. If this happens to you and your chosen builder during or after the build, it won’t just be the builder who will be fined, you will have to pay an extra 17.5% on top of the “build price” and a heavy penalty. This is because there is no proof of the “build price” because you have paid cash, it will often be a heavier penalty decided by a crown court, a criminal record and possibly even a 6 month imprisonment sentance depending on the size of the building job.
IS IT REALLY WORTH THE RISK !!!
I have been told that alot of laundered money is going into lofts at the moment, where people are buying lot’s of houses legitimately and filtering laundered money through the tradesman direct avoiding all the VAT, claiming they built the loft themselves and selling their houses for a huge profit of just pure clean money.
Just think about your actions first, with cash you have no come back on the builder if any thing goes wrong. All he has to do is deny he built your loft, and you can’t do anything, it’s not like you can take him to court.
Now weigh all these negatives with one simple solution…
CHOOSE A COMPANY WHO ARE SAFE, ETHICAL AND MORALLY BASED. A COMPANY WHO PAY ALL THEIR VAT AND ARE PROUD OF IT. IF THEY’RE A LITTLE MORE EXPENSIVE IT SHOULDN’T MATTER TOO MUCH BECAUSE YOU’RE PAYING INTO THE COMFORT OF THEM BEING AROUND IN THE YEARS TO COME IF THERE IS A PROBLEM WITH YOUR JOB.
After all a 10 year guarantee isn’t worth that much once the builders out of business and unfortunately have been closed down…
There is probably equity in your property, is the cash route really the right way to go?
July 10th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
[…] Vat on Building work including lofts is to expensive and needs to be cut. By doing this millions of home owners will be able to stay where they are and extend their property. The FMB have put a petition together to try and crack down on cowboy builders on all trades to stop the gangsters doing cash deals with customers and then leaving them half way through a job without finishing the job at an agreed the price in cash, walking off the job and having no come back on themselves in court as the customer has avoided the VAT…. […]