When a contractor stops turning up, the legal question is not whether you are annoyed — it is whether their conduct amounts to a breach serious enough to end the contract, and what that entitles you to.
Abandonment is usually a repudiatory breach
A contractor who makes clear, by words or conduct, that they will not complete the work has usually repudiated the contract. That gives you a choice:
- Accept the repudiation — treat the contract as at an end, and claim damages for the cost of putting yourself in the position you would have been in had they finished; or
- Affirm the contract — insist on performance and keep the contract alive.
In practice almost everyone accepts the repudiation, but you should do it clearly and in writing. Ambiguity — continuing to chase them to come back while also hiring someone else — can be used against you later.
Not every delay is repudiation. A contractor who is late, or who has paused work over a genuine dispute about payment or variations, may not have repudiated at all. Look at what the contract says about time, notices, and suspension before you act: a customer who ends the contract without the right to can become the party in breach. See withholding payment or ending the contract with a builder.
How damages are measured
The starting point is the cost of completing the work with a replacement contractor, less whatever you would still have had to pay the original contractor under the contract. Add to that:
- the reasonable cost of rectifying defective work they did do;
- losses caused by the delay, where those were within the parties' contemplation when the contract was made (lost rent on a property you could not let, for example);
- wasted expenditure you can prove.
Damages for breach of contract do not generally compensate for upset or injured feelings. In building cases the courts do award general damages for physical inconvenience and discomfort caused by the breach, and the distress that goes with it, but the sums are modest. How the cost of putting bad work right is measured covers the detail.
Your duty to mitigate
You must take reasonable steps to keep your loss down. That means getting competitive quotes rather than engaging the first available contractor at any price, and not using the situation to upgrade the specification. A court will only award the reasonable cost of completing what was agreed.
Keep records of every quote you obtained, including the ones you rejected and why.
Deposits and stage payments
Money paid in advance for work that was never done is brought into the damages calculation, and where nothing at all was done for it, it can be recovered as money paid for a consideration that has wholly failed. Check whether the deposit was held under any scheme or guarantee: some trade bodies and finance providers offer protection that is quicker than litigation.
If you paid by credit card and the cash price was more than £100 and not more than £30,000 (the limits at the time of writing, October 2026), section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 may make the card provider jointly liable. That claim is made to the card provider. If the builder has become insolvent or cannot be found, see builder gone bust or disappeared.
If you are a consumer
The Consumer Rights Act 2015 implies terms into every contract for services with a consumer:
- the service must be performed with reasonable care and skill (s.49);
- where no time is fixed, within a reasonable time (s.52);
- anything the trader said or wrote about the service, which you took into account when deciding to engage them, forms part of the contract (s.50).
Where the work was not done with reasonable care and skill, the statutory remedies are repeat performance or, if that is impossible or is not done within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience, a price reduction — up to the full price. Where the work was not done within a reasonable time, the statutory remedy is a price reduction. These sit alongside the ordinary damages claim; they do not replace it. Your rights under the Consumer Rights Act sets them out in full.
What a solicitor will want from you
- The contract, quote or estimate, and any written variations.
- A dated record of what was done, and photographs of the state of the work when they left.
- All messages around the abandonment, especially anything showing they did not intend to return.
- Quotes from replacement contractors, and evidence of what you actually paid.
- Details of the contractor's legal identity (Companies House, if a company) and any trade body membership or insurance.
This guide is general information about the law of England and Wales. It is not legal advice. A claim for breach of a simple contract must generally be brought within six years of the breach.
Frequently asked
Can I just hire someone else to finish the work?
Once the contractor has repudiated the contract and that has been accepted, yes. The reasonable cost of completing the work is the normal measure of damages, and loss that could reasonably have been avoided is not recoverable, so written evidence of the abandonment and more than one quote both matter. If the contractor has only paused or is late, replacing them can put the customer in breach.
Does it matter whether I'm a business or a private customer?
Yes. If you are a consumer, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 implies terms that services will be performed with reasonable care and skill and within a reasonable time, and gives you specific remedies including repeat performance and price reduction. Business customers rely on the contract terms and on the terms implied by the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982.