From dream home to a shambles: Builder leaves family home in shocking state as woman battled cancer

The piles of bricks, blocks and rubble and incomplete walls show how building works quoted at £102,000 were abandoned unfinished at a home in Wynyard, near Middlesbrough.

A couple handed over £51,000 to Scott Richardson as they tried to create their “dream family home”, only for him to turn it into a “shambles”.

Stockton Council has advised people to get at least three quotes for any home improvement work, seek recommendations from friends and family, and not to hand over large sums of money upfront. It successfully prosecuted the 35-year-old, who was given a suspended jail term at Teesside Crown Court on Friday (May 8).

Richardson, director of the now-defunct Billingham firm SR Joinery and Building Services, never completed the first phase of the job, a garage conversion and orangery summer room, despite being paid most of the £60,000 he quoted. The second phase, a £42,000 oft conversion, was never even started and had to be abandoned.

The householder told of the “continuous drain” of mounting costs, prolonged disruption and delays, financial pressure, dwindling savings and strain on mental health wrought by the job, which was supposed to be finished in three months.

He spoke of sleepless nights between 2023 and 2025 as they exhausted their budget, used up savings and borrowed the maximum on their mortgage – all while he and his wife dealt with her cancer diagnosis and treatment and they were both made redundant from work.

He said in a powerful statement read out to the court: “Our home should have been a place of rest and recovery. Instead the project turned into a building site… Each day our house felt less like a house and more like a problem to survive.”

An independent surveyor later valued the work at £29,200, almost £22,000 less than was paid. The householder was promised a £21,790 refund in May 2024, over a year after work started, but Richardson’s company went into insolvency a month later, and it cost £143,000 to find a replacement builder, rectify and complete the work, said prosecutor Joan Smith.

Richardson, of Stoney Wood Drive, Wynyard, was given a four-month prison sentence suspended for a year with 120 hours’ unpaid work and ordered to pay £24,000 compensation after he admitted two unfair trading offences, his first conviction.

Caoimhe Bicknell, defending, said Richardson was “naive” and did not set out to mislead anyone as he tried to expand his company, which was “plunged into financial difficulties”.

Judge Francis Laird KC, the Recorder of Middlesbrough, told Richardson: “In short, the work that you carried out proved to be nothing short of a shambles. It was never completed, but despite that you continued to ask for payments.

“He paints a picture of complete hopelessness at the situation you left him and his family in. He has lost out significantly.”

He added Richardson must have quickly realised he could not finish the job: “Instead of being honest and coming clean early in the process, you started to weave a web of lies. He was caught in a trap, hoping as he continued to make further payments that matters would improve.”

Councillor Norma Stephenson, Stockton Council’s cabinet member for access, communities and community safety, said: “Mr. Richardson’s behaviour has caused a lot of financial and emotional stress to the customer.

"Work not completed on time, overpayments made for the work that has been done and for materials which were said to have been purchased but never arrived on the site.

“The thorough work carried out by our trading standards team has ensured Mr. Richardson is answerable for his actions and sends another warning to other traders to take their legal obligations seriously or face the consequences.

"Please obtain at least three quotes for any home improvement work, seek recommendations from friends and family, and do not hand over large sums of money upfront.”