Family caught in debt trap by cowboy builder

When Becky and Steves North's little boy Owen ended up in hospital with an asthma attack, they decided it was time to have central heating installed.

Little did they know that four years later they would end up with a dangerous bathroom they didn't need and facing a debt of 11,000.

Becky and Steve had fallen prey to an unscrupulous builder who preyed on their vulnerability and trusting nature. "He seemed so nice and professional. He really seemed to care and we started to think of him as a friend," says mother of two Becky.

The Norths invited the builder in to give them a quote for central heating for their terraced house in Rawmarsh, Rotherham. But when he said it would cost nearly 3,500, they said there was no way they could afford it.

The builder then said that he could organise finance for the Norths and they agreed. "It was late at night and we signed the documents and he said he'd fill them in at home. Looking back, it sounds daft, but he was so believable," says Steve, 31.

A few days after they signed the papers, the couple found out that they could get the work paid for by the Government's Warm Front Scheme. "We rang the builder and said that we didn't need the work doing any more, but he said it was too late and that we had signed the documents and couldn't get out of it," explains Becky, 29.

By law the Norths had a cooling off period of 14 days but they were not aware of their rights and didn't know who to turn to. "We didn't have any paperwork and we just trusted him."

The builder told them that as the finance had already been approved, they would have to find some other work in the house on which to spend the 3,500 they could ill-afford.

"We decided to have a downstairs shower, toilet and sink," says Becky. "But after he started the work he said we didn't have enough money for a shower."

The Norths ended up with badly fitting sink and toilet and nothing else. "The toilet ended up falling off the wall, and when we tried to get hold of the builder, his phone no longer rang out," says Steve.

The toilet leaked which meant the entire room smelt. It was also dangerous and illegal as the builder had not applied for building regulations to create a downstairs bathroom and the ancient fuse box was in the same room.

"It got to the stage where we just couldn't use the room. It made the whole house smell."

What made it worse was that the Norths were still paying off the loan. It turned out that the loan was over 10 years, not the four they thought and with interest payments they would end up owing 11,000.

"The builder had used a broker to take the loan out with a pretty well-known company so we couldn't even chase him through them. The company said if we paid off more each month then we would pay it off quicker."

Steve started working all hours at a call centre; Becky is a teaching assistant at a nearby school.

"It was terrible. Steve was working all the time and the children were missing him. And the debt just didn't seem to come down. I would go to bed worrying about money. It starts to affect you and then it starts to affect the children."

What made the treatment of the Norths seem so cruel was that in the past they had both been homeless, living in Becky's car, until someone gave them a break and Becky was able to get a job and then Steve.

"We made a decision that we wanted to get our lives sorted. We could have taken a different route but could have ended up in prison. We were lucky that someone had faith in us and then helped us get our home," explains Becky.

"It makes it worse when we have been through so much and were working so hard for someone to take advantage of us like this."

At Christmas Becky fell ill with pneumonia and ended up in hospital. It was while she was recuperating that she saw a BBC1 programme called Cowboy Trap.

"We wrote off to the programme not really thinking much about it, but just really to tell someone what had happened to us and get it off our chest," says Steve.

But the programme makers were so shocked by the Norths' story that they decided to feature them in the series which looks at the victims of Cowboy builders and tries to make things better for them.

It was then they discovered that the work done by the builder was illegal and would have to come out. "They transformed that horrible stinking room into a lovely playroom for the children," says Becky, mother of Abigail, seven, and six year-old Owen.

The programme makers also contacted the loan company who offered to pay back all the money plus the interest. "They had down in their records that we had had fascias and gutters fitted, not a dodgy toilet. We were supposed to have filled in a satisfaction questionnaire from the finance company but we never got one."

It turned out that the builder was getting the money from the loan company paid directly into his bank account.

The Norths say their lives have been turned around. "We can sleep at night without worrying," says Becky. "My health is getting better and I am losing weight."

Steve has a warning for anyone else in their position."Make sure you check out their work first and get advice about taking out a loan."

John Field, manager at Consumer Direct, a government- funded advice service, said: "If you decide you want some work done then the first thing to do is to find a reputable trader either by using the Trade Mark scheme supported by the Office of Fair Trading or a trade organisation such as the Federation of Master Builders.

"Then get quotations from two or three builders and make sure it specifies what is required and a time scale. A quotation is different from an estimate as it is legally binding."

Mr Field added that if you needed to finance the work then the first port of call should be the bank. He also said that building work carried a cancellation period of seven days while finance agreements were usually five, although either side could withdraw until the finance agreement had been executed.

Cowboy Trap is on BBC1 at 11am tomorrow.

Consumer Direct: www. consumerdirect.gov.uk