A suburban nightmare: They just wanted the builder to create a little extra space - and followed all the rules. Then, in a few tumultuous minutes, they lost EVERYTHING when their house fell down
03-29-2015
- Ed Goldswain and Jacquie Hale bought a £345,000 one-bed flat in 2011
- But when Jacquie became pregnant, they decided to extend the cellar
- They had hoped to add an extra bedroom - but it was a disastrous decision
- The work caused devastating cracks and the building had to be demolished
- Led to a 29 month legal battle, three different homes - and its not over yet
By Guy Adams for the Daily Mail
When Ed Goldswain and Jacquie Hale became the proud owners of No 4 Stanhope Avenue, they weren’t just getting somewhere to live.
Instead, the young couple were buying into a dream: that the modest flat in Finchley, North London, would provide a cosy starter home for the family they planned to raise together. It wasn’t much to look at, but the £345,000 Edwardian property had what estate agents call ‘bags of potential’, with high ceilings, a nice garden, and a cellar that could be converted into extra living space, as and when children came along.
They got the keys in November 2011. And a few months later came more good news: Jacquie discovered she was pregnant. ‘My first thought was: “Brilliant; I’m going to be a mum!”,’ she recalls. ‘My second was: “Right; we’d better get that cellar done.” It’s obviously a cliche, but it was one of the most exciting, and happy, periods of my life.’
Shock: Ed Goldswain and Jacquie Hale - pictured with sons Ernest, two, and George, seven months - lost their home and their possessions when botched work to their basement extension made their house collapse
That was then. Today, three years later, Ed, 40, and Jacquie, 39, are the proud parents of not one, but two bonny boys: Ernest, who recently turned two, and seven-month-old George. However, the rest of their dream has, quite literally, turned to dust. To find out why, you need only visit the spot where their treasured home once stood.
Today, it contains one of the most bizarre landmarks in North London: a vacant space, surrounded by security fences, in the middle of an otherwise built-up, attractive street.
Where once there were bricks, mortar and freshly painted sash windows, there is now fresh air. Weeds grow on the rubble-strewn floor. Metal support beams are silhouetted against the sky. This surreal spectacle is the direct result of the events of November 24, 2012, when botched work to convert Ed and Jacquie’s cellar caused 4 Stanhope Avenue to collapse before their eyes.
In a few tumultuous minutes, the couple lost not only their home, but all of their possessions. Deeply shocked, and suddenly homeless, the seven-and-a-half months pregnant Jacquie was then taken to hospital — twice — after suffering early labour contractions.
So began a Kafka-esque nightmare which, in the ensuing 29 months, has seen them move between three temporary properties, while being forced to pay the mortgage on a home that no longer exists (the loan still has 21 years to run) and fight a string of legal battles related to the disaster.
Their life savings, built up via more than a decade of graft, have all but vanished. ‘You read about things like this, and think it couldn’t possibly happen to you,’ says Jacquie. ‘But the thing about this is that it could have happened to anyone.’
Battle: A High Court judge concluded 'the overwhelming probability is that AIMS failed to carry out their work with reasonable skill and care' - but they have not received a penny in compensation, and are unlikely to
Indeed. For when you get into the gory detail of this domestic nightmare, one fact sticks out: none of it is Ed and Jacquie’s fault.
That isn’t just their view. It also was the verdict handed down last week, at the High Court in London, where the couple was found to be entirely blameless for the building’s collapse.
Lawyers successfully argued that 4 Stanhope Avenue had instead fallen down because of an ‘incompetent’ builder called Christopher Knott, of AIMS Plumbing & Building Services, who was ‘completely out of his depth’ and failed to properly support the building’s foundations while excavating.
The judge concluded: ‘The overwhelming probability is that AIMS failed to carry out their work with reasonable skill and care.’
He called it a ‘sad case,’ and ordered Knott’s company to pay them £287,000. Yet Ed and Jacquie are unlikely to see any of that money.
AIMS is believed to be insolvent, and the dubious Mr Knott didn’t even bother to turn up to court.
Careful: They thought they had protected themselves by putting the job out to tender through the Federation of Master Builders, a trade body supposed to protect consumers from cowboy firm
Over tea and biscuits in their current rented property in the commuter town of Harpenden, Hertfordshire, where their sparse possessions now include piles of A4 paperwork related to the collapse, the couple wearily explain that this nightmare has much, much further to run.
Partly to blame is Mr Knott, along with a building industry which, even in the era of health-and-safety, remains shockingly under-regulated.
Then there are two sets of insurers who are still disputing liability for the collapse. Plus there is an element of rotten luck. Jacquie says: ‘Everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. And then some.’
The tale of woe begins in the summer of 2012, when the couple put their basement conversion out to tender via the website of the Federation of Master Builders, a trade body supposed to protect consumers from cowboy firms.
It was, on paper, a straightforward job. Several other identical properties, including the home next door, had carried out similar basement conversions in recent years. And five different building companies bid for the contract, including AIMS.
‘They had a good website, and seemed to have been in business for some time. When Mr Knott came round to see us, he seemed competent and legitimate, and wore a smart shirt with the firm’s logo on it,’ says Jacquie.
‘His wasn’t the cheapest quote, but he was the one who could start work soonest. Since we wanted the project to be finished before the baby came along, we hired him.’
Before signing a contract for the initial build, which involved lowering the cellar floor by a metre, creating two light-wells, underpinning and waterproofing the internal walls, Ed and Jacquie spoke with previous AIMS clients, to check its credentials.
They inspected Knott’s insurance policy, and had it amended in order to cover exactly the sort of structural work the project would entail. Jacquie even spoke personally with the insurer to confirm that the policy would cover him for the job.
They also informed the freeholder, who oversaw a separate buildings insurance for the flat, and checked the forthcoming project would not invalidate the policy.
‘We did everything by the book,’ says Jacquie. ‘We had planning, buildings control, party-wall agreements.’
Work started in September 2012, and for the first ten weeks appeared to proceed without a hitch. Until November 24.
Cracks: The couple woke up one day able to see through cracks in their wall to their garden
That Saturday morning, they woke to find that large cracks had appeared in their bedroom wall overnight. ‘We’d previously seen the odd hairline crack, but given the age of the building had been told to expect that,’ says Ed. ‘A builder friend had even joked that we should only start worrying when we could see daylight through them.
‘Well, when we woke up that morning, we could. We could look into our garden. The cracks were about a centimetre wide.’
Around mid-day came a knock at the door. Their upstairs neighbours, who had a small daughter, had noticed similar damage. ‘We went to take a look, and while we were watching, these cracks just started opening up,’ recalls Jacquie. ‘In a few seconds, they went from one to ten centimetres wide.’ Soon, bricks were falling.
‘We realised the house was starting to collapse, so ran into the street and called 999.’
The fire brigade cordoned off the house, and evacuated neighbouring buildings. Then Barnet Council declared 4 Stanhope Avenue dangerous, meaning it would have to be demolished.
‘From that point, they technically had control of the property, and we, by law, couldn’t go back in,’ says Jacquie. ‘We realised we’d lost everything, except the clothes we were wearing, and the things we’d grabbed on the way out. I’d had a handbag, Ed had his laptop. That was it.’
Deeply shocked, seven-and-a-half months pregnant Jacquie was taken to an ambulance, and monitored by paramedics.
Fast: The cracks grew larger, and by that afternoon, they had fled the house as they became 10cm wide
In the ensuing days, she was twice rushed to hospital after experiencing contractions caused, doctors said, by extreme stress. ‘The stress immediately post collapse was mainly caused by feelings of guilt towards the neighbours and what they were going through,’ she says.
All of the couple’s possessions were lost. ‘The worst, obviously, was the stuff you can’t replace. Our photo albums, and some family heirlooms. Silver napkin rings from my great-great-grandparents and many items belonging to Ed’s late mother,’ says Jacquie. ‘But we consoled ourselves with the thought that everyone was ok and everything was insured.’
Sadly, however, that wasn’t true.
While Ed and Jacquie’s contents insurance covered the majority of their possessions, along with compensation claims brought against them by neighbours and the owners of the demolished upstairs flat, the two firms covering Mr Knott and 4 Stanhope Avenue refused to pay out.
‘The builder’s insurer claimed the policy was invalid because Knott had broken terms of it, due to the incompetent way he worked,’ says Jacquie.
‘The freeholder’s insurer rejected our claim because of a clause in the policy saying they weren’t liable if the building fell down of its own accord. Ridiculous though it sounds, they are still arguing that is what happened.’ The couple are now considering whether to pursue both insurance firms for the money it will take to reconstruct 4 Stanhope Avenue.
They may not be able to afford to chase the insurers, however. More than two years of legal bills, mortgage payments, and rent payments for their temporary homes have left them hundreds of thousands of pounds out of pocket.
Prior to the disaster, they had worked tirelessly to gain their foothold on the property ladder. Ed had a good job in marketing and Jacquie had just spent a decade with a major investment bank, in a role that required punishing hours.
‘You give up a lot for that kind of job,’ says Jacquie.
Gone: Barnet Council declared 4 Stanhope Avenue dangerous, meaning it would have to be demolished
‘In fact, the reason we came late to starting a family is that I’d sacrificed relationships for my career. When I met Ed, I finally decided to take a less stressful job, and have a life.’
The flat was central to those plans. They’d saved £280,000 to buy it, taking out a mortgage of £150,000 to finance the remainder of the purchase, along with the ensuing building work.
Today, all they have for that outlay is, essentially, an empty hole.
The Federation of Master Builders said AIMS was suspended from membership pending a full investigation as soon as it became aware of the incident.
As for Mr Knott, 29, who was paid £33,000 by Ed and Jacquie while construction was under way, he stopped returning calls soon after the house fell down.
A month later, he tried to put AIMS Plumbing and Building Services into liquidation. Then he moved out of the £1.2 million house he shared in Kentish Town, North-West London, with his parents to a rented property a few doors down, and started a brand new company: AIMS Building Services.
It is still very much in business.
Indeed, Knott’s girlfriend, Ciana Lennon O’Dowd, who shares his address, is listed as a director. And the swish website of the new firm — founded, according to Companies House, in December 2012 — describes it, falsely, as a ‘high quality and diverse company who have served London for over 15 years.’
Knott, who is sometimes known as Christopher James, appears to be prospering, despite the misery he has caused.
According to his Facebook page, he seems to have recently enjoyed an exotic holiday.
And when the Daily Mail called this week to ask if he wanted to pass comment on the recent court case, he declared: ‘No, I don’t want to. And no, we won’t be commenting in future.’
Despite his failure to apologise to the people whose lives he has ruined, Knott still feels inclined to tout for new business.
‘A couple of days after the court case, I had a call on my mobile phone from a number I didn’t recognise,’ says Jacquie. ‘It was AIMS Building Services, who said they were carrying out a “customer satisfaction survey”. I told them exactly who I was, and the line suddenly went dead.’
For an entirely blameless couple who have suffered so much, it was, perhaps, the final insult.