Ricardo Charles, structural engineer, Nunhead.

[Nunheadlass85]

BEWARE- DO NOT USE-

I wanted to write a warning about the 'service' Ricardo Charles, a structural engineer in Nunhead provided for our extension project. I would heavily not recommend his service!

He was contracted to provide all information for the building control application of our domestic extension. We signed the contract, he 'completed' the calculations and we made the payment. The drawings and calculations he provided after payment were inaccurate (he hadn't spend the time to look properly at the planning drawings provided) and incomplete (he hadn't bothered to do any calculations regarding the roof structure).

He has solely been the worse appointment and worst 'service' I have ever had the unfortunate misfortune to work with.

when our architect tried to question him about the wrong calculations and drawings he refused to co-operate and did not answer any questions about his mistakes stating he had already completed his contract.

Worse still he tried to hold us to ransom asking for a further ?1000 to answer the questions about his mistakes!!

Unfortunately we had already paid him the initial payment. He cost our project ?1000 and also 2 months of precious time with delays and difficulties.

We have now had to appointment another structural engineer to correct and complete what he was supposed to provide.

He is supposed to be a professional person with industry experience and should have been more clear in his quote and have been more honest and professional. He deliberately and deviously conned us out of our money and time with no intention to complete the job. Worse still he tried to hold us to ransom to answer questions about his incomplete and inaccurate work.

Please beware - do not use Ricardo Charles!

[Engineer]

Fabrication & Lies

In response to the above message the facts of this clients interaction with my practice are these:

Having provided a quotation for the structural design work to her extension she responded several weeks later asking if we could undertake the work for half of the original quotation.

When we eventually agreed on a price she took three weeks to pay the deposit by cheque.

We were given a set of architectural planning drawings to work with and produced a design based on these drawings.

On completion of the work we requested the balance of the payment.

At this point she introduced her architect who produced another set of drawings and list of requirements

I explained that my appointment was with her and not her architect and that as that his involvement was not part of our contract and that we would not be responding to her architects requirements

She then took four weeks to pay the balance of the fee simply to get the drawings and calculations.

At this point she wrote in conjunction with her architect a vitriolic list of requirements and threatened to discredit me and my practice for her incompetence.

Clearly this client did not seek advice as to best practice and blames my practice for her own failings.

Her name is Laura Dodd (Be Careful)