Michael Olowu Design Haus cowboy builder. he took money for the job and never finished it. London Internet

We decided to write this report as we were ripped off by Michael Olowu of Design Hous. He collected money for the job which he had not completed and now either disappear and does not answer his phone for weeks or write an occasional email saying that he is working on our project.

We contracted a carpenter Michael Olowu of Design Haus in September 2016 to manufacture and install a wardrobe to include a dressing wardrobe, bookshelf and tv unit.

On the 23rd of September we agreed with that he would manufacture and install a wardrobe in our property in return for our payment to him of £5,770. The wardrobe was to be made in accordance with the sketch and images attached to this agreement.

According to this agreement the installation should have taken place on the 14th November 2016 and taken approximately 5 days.

We paid a deposit of £2,940 to commence production on the 29.09.2016, and the balance 48 hours before delivery (£2,430) which we also paid on the 12.12.2016.

However, the installation did not take place until 12th of December, which constitutes a breach of contract as it was much later than the date we had agreed. Although we paid the full amount requested, the full delivery has not still taken place even now, 19^th April 2017. We are still missing a bookshelf and some parts of the wardrobe. This is the second episode of breach contract, he has not delivered the finished wardrobe as agreed.

We tried to settle this with him in an amicable way but it did not work. Michael Olowu persisted in breaching the contract.

During these seven months, there have been five months of delay in total up to now, the wardrobe is not complete and he is now avoiding contact with us. We have numerous emails and phone messages which prove that we have been patient and did not want to escalate the matter.

On the 14th February 2017 his installer arrived to complete the job. He did not finish it and left at the end of the day. The work he had done was of very poor quality and he also caused some damage to our new wooden floor and ceiling. We tried to contact Michael to inform him about the situation but he failed to answer neither our calls nor voice messages.

When his installer finished the work, he left the living room in a terrible condition. He used drilling and cutting devices inside the flat which caused a lot of dust on the furniture, floor and inside the cupboards which were not covered with dust sheets as we had agreed they would be. The TV and our leather sofa were not covered and were left covered in dust from the workmen which took hours to clean. We had to call a cleaner to clean all the mess and asked to pay the invoice which he never paid.

We kept trying to call him and email him but his phone was off.

Then we put our review on www.mybuilder.com and google having explained what happened. Mybuilder replied that we were not the first customers to complain and they suspended his account. No sooner the google review had gone online, Michael emailed us saying that called him a thief, damaged his reputation and he has a right to go on a holiday.

He turned up after three weeks and said that he would finish the job on the 24^th March 2017 only if we remove our reviews which are not true. He said that if did not remove the reviews he would not bother to finish. We still thought that he was decent and removed the reviews but he never followed through with his commitments.

In our opinion, Michael Olowu did not use reasonable care and skill when he carried out this work. The installation has not been done according to the sketch and images either. The quality of work is very poor. The result is not what we ordered and what we paid for. Some skirting, which we did not agree on, was glued to the new wall paper and it has to come off as it is not on the agreed images.

Below I summarise the multiple breaches of contract:

1. Delay on commencing of installation.

2. Delivery has not been completed.

3. Delay on completion of installation.

4. Reasonable care and skill have not been used.

At the moment the situation is that the wardrobe is not finished, Michael avoids communication. The emails which we received in the last few months were explaining that he was working hard and our panels were nearly ready and he was coming to fix in a week. And in two weeks he repeats the same again.