Shocking builder - avoid at all costs!!

After getting divorced at the end of 2012 I bought my first property on my own and wanted to do building alterations. I employed Proud Construction. What a disaster. <br> <br> A small build took from January til October, mainly because he would leave one unsupervised and untrained labourer twice a week, to chip away at the job. In October, I held him to the penalty clause. He withdrew from the site, saying the penalties were worth more than the money left in the job, so it wasn't worth his while to complete it. <br> <br> The work was done appallingly. He didn't interweave the old brickwork with the new, so there are cracks. The geometry of the build is wrong!. The windows were not centred. The engineer refused to approve the I-beam because it was welded in an amateur way in the middle of the load bearing part - which was therefore weak. It was supported by only two inches of brick on either side! The walls were not straight and he compensated by 8 inches of plaster. The walls weren't skimmed properly - the person doing it had never done it before, and it looked like a badly iced cake. Etc.etc. Leaking roof now as he cut corners - 20 tiles short! he hid this inadequacy under the coping. Disgrace!