·       ¬ The story of injustice that motivated our Rare Foundation

In their greener days and long before Rare was created, one of the team was the personal client and victim of unethical practice at the hands of an Architectural Design company (the ‘contractor’), and at a personal cost of over £4000. The contractor, who was Company Director and operated the company and designs himself, was engaged by the client to provide a full design and planning service, in line with the services he offered.

The client, based solely on incorrect and unethical advice from the contractor, paid for two sets of drawings and designs when in fact only one was necessary. Of the two promised drawings and designs, only one was ever provided to the client and submitted to the local authority planning department. To this day, the second drawing and application were never completed.

The one drawing and application that was completed was to qualify as what is known as ‘permitted development’, and therefore essentially offer virtually guaranteed approval. However, the contractor miscalculated the drawings by an unbelievable 60% and this resulted in refusal of planning permission on the grounds that the design did not comply with permitted development. The application was then resubmitted by the contractor, astonishingly without client knowledge or approval, but was severely miscalculated again for a second time. This resulted in a second refusal from the planning team, on the same grounds. Shortly after, the contractor stopped engaging in correspondence and disappeared, until the client took the matter to a small claims court.

The case went to trial and, just a few weeks before the hearing and with justice on the horizon, the contractor contacted the court to confirm his company had been liquidated. By closing his company, he knew he would avoid the court case and any outcome that did not go in his favour. An unfavourable outcome for him was likely, based on the particulars of the case and overwhelming evidence supplied, and could have meant him paying back part or all of the money he had taken, plus interest, court fees, and associated costs. Upon investigation, it emerged that he had in fact put his company into voluntary liquidation shortly after the court claim was initially made some 10 months earlier, and he had withheld this from the court and the client. It also emerged this was the third company he had set up and later dissolved or liquidated.

The contractor had extorted money from the client by issuing incorrect and unethical advice around what was necessary to achieve the client their outcome. He had also exercised such a spectacular level of professional incompetence and malpractice that not one but two applications were refused, despite being straightforward and a virtual guarantee under permitted development rights. The contractor had then vanished, never correcting his incompetence or providing the second drawing and application, and then liquidated his company to avoid the rule of law from being exercised to enforce justice for the client.

The property and construction industry has many talented people and businesses who are honest and professional, but it is also notorious for the many unethical and profit-dominated individuals and businesses who choose money over humanity, and who use legal loopholes to avoid being held accountable.

Almost the biggest injustice of all is that clients in situations like this end up at a significant financial loss, stressed and emotionally stretched to their limits, but still at square one in terms of needing the professional service they’d initially sought out in place. In this cruel twist of fate, after everything they have lost and endured, they have to start from the beginning and pay all over again. Essentially, twice paying and feeling like twice a victim.

Whilst our teammate’s story may not have had the obvious happy ending, this is what led to the creation of the Rare Foundation; and there is a happy ending in that. This is the motivation behind helping people not only find a service with ethics and integrity, but where victims who have to pay for a second time can get a helping hand through subsidised rates, and perhaps even have their faith in humanity restored.

“Honour your commitments with integrity”         - Les Brown