A Nottinghamshire fraudster who built one of the worst extensions a surveyor said they’d ever seen has been jailed. Barrie Parkin, of no fixed address, spent five years tricking customers out of money by overcharging them and completing works to a dismal standard.
Victims Andrea and George Reeves, of Sutton-In-Ashfield, were conned after 73-year-old Parkin showed them photographs of work he claimed to be his. But this was false.
They said: “We trusted him and used all our savings to pay for him to build a new kitchen and bathroom extension, but the work was so poor we were told by experts that it needed to be demolished and rebuilt. We had to wait until 2021 before we could afford to fix the damage Barrie Parkin caused. It has been horrendous living through this, and our lives have been on hold for the last eight years.”
A sufferer who had hanging electrical wires and a pipe protruding in a conservatory—which Parkin said would require six weeks to construct—were among the other victims. However, ten months later, the room remained merely a shell, and the victim didn’t realize that work had been done without planning permission until she got in touch with the council.
After evaluating the proposed works, a chartered surveyor concluded that they ought to have cost about £8,000. Parkin had provided a quotation of £14,000 and included several additional costs.An orangery was quoted to another victim for £19,495; Parkin estimated that it would take eight weeks to construct. However, sixteen weeks later, after growing worried about the subpar quality of the job and the rising number of requests for payments in advance of
She then contacted Parkin to request to cancel the works and Parkin responded to this request by asking for an additional £4,000 to cancel. Other cases saw Parkin leaving a home exposed and open to the elements when building an extension and throwing stones from a driveway onto the walls of a conservatory to mimic the pebble dashed effect of the rest of the house.
And the cherry on the cake was an extension which a surveyor said was “one of the worst he had ever seen and should be condemned.” The victims had paid £20,591.23 for it – but it was valued that the work carried out was worth around £5000.
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