Hi Sophie

I cannot offer you any advice, but I can confirm that the Halifax must be the worst company to deal with when it comes to carrying out there obligations with regard to their insurance. My daughter was flooded out in the recent Morpeth floods of Sep 5th 2008. It is now the 8th Dec 2008.

The halifax have ripped up the floor boards, placed an inadequate de-humidifier in one room of the house, which has a container to collect water which floods back into the room when it is full. Other houses flooded at the same time are nearly completed. All the Halifax can do is penny pinch over small details whilst they have virtually destroyed the cooker by just leaving it in situ and covering with muck. After complaing to the right people through the right channels, they now say this could take 28 days to answer.They are a disgrace and are probably getting what they deserve.

The awful thing about this is that after saving hard to get this house, my daughter gave birth to a son on the night of the 5th sept as the house got flooded. At this time they can offer nothing definate and just ignore calls.

DEAR SOPHIE
read with great interest what you had just written,i had simmilar problems with halifax insurance and the standard of work of their company is appaling, the bank is a failure so is its insurance arm. it is better to settle the claim before work start and get a reputable worker/company to do that. a bit expensive but less headache or change your insurance alltogether as i did .regards

ALAN

Hello

I have an ongoing claim with the Halifax. I will try to be as succinct as possible.

1. Last summer I had subsidence due to the tree outside my house (council tree on the pavement). Halifax are my insurers and appointed a building firm to fix. JW Cannon.

2. JW Cannon started last October. Instead of removing my curtains, they tied them up in knots and put a plastic bag round them (they had to remove plaster and hack away round the windows where the subsidence crack was). So my expensive curtains were filthy and creased.

The dust sheets they used were so filthy that they trampled more dirt and dust into my carpets. I phoned both Halifax and JW Cannon to complain. They did take down the curtains, but did nothing about the dust sheets. The result is that my hallway and landing carpets are now ruined.

They only painted up to the cornice on the ceiling, so you can see that the cornice is a different colour from the rest of the ceiling. They put one, thin lick on paint on the windowsill and you can still see the base underneath.

Where they filled in the crack, another crack has is now showing.

They left telephone wires hanging from the wall and didn't tack them back.

In my bedroom they didn't use the original Laura Ashley paint, but 'matched' it with a cheaper Dulux one - result is that it's the wrong colour - about five shades darker.

The outside of my house, which also needed repainting, was painted in Farrow and Ball. Again, they repainted this with a cheaper paint (Dulux trade I think).

2. I complained on the phone to the Halifax about this and ended up having to put my compliant in writing in Feb of this year. They did get the carpets cleaned, but this did not remove the stains. I heard nothing from them about the building work. In May/June I called them to enquire and they said the case was closed, but that someone would call me back. No one called me back. I then in Sept received a letter from their solicitors saying that - although I had paid my £1,000 excess - the cheque had now expired and I had to pay again or else they would take me to court.

3. I called Halifax to explain that the issues were still outstanding. Halifax said that they had received a letter from JW Cannon to say that they had been back out and rectified the issues. This is completely untrue.

4. Halifax, conveniently, couldn't find my letter from February detailing all the issues. They did recall their solicitors letter. They sent out another building firm to look at the work, who confirmed it was substandard and went back to Halifax to quote for fixing the issues.

Halifax have since admitted that they should never have sent the solicitors letter to me.

5. I waited to hear back from Halifax about when the new firm were going to start the repairs and didn't hear from them. Two and a half weeks after the new company had been to my house, I called the Halifax on Friday. On the Monday they called back to say that they would approve the paint work in the lounge only and fix the other issues - but not the bedroom or replace the carpets.

They said they had spoken to JW Cannon who claimed that the dust sheets used were not theirs and that they were my dust sheets and that it was not their problem! (Note this is the company who also told Halifax that they'd been out, rectified the issues and that I was happy with the work).

6. To cut an even longer story shorter - having argued with them for the past three weeks - Halifax have now agreed to fix all the issues, except, the carpet. Halifax state that this has now been handed over to their supplier relationship management to get fixed.

7. I contest with Halifax that it's irrelevant to hand it over to supplier relationship management, as my contract, agreement and r'ship is with the Halifax and not their supplier. I have no intention of ever letting anyone from JW Cannon in my house again (and beware all of you who use them as a supplier - they clearly are more than economical with the truth).

8. I have told the Halifax that I now intend to appoint a loss adjustor and complain to the ombudsman. The manager there told me that if I did that, it would slow my claim down and that it would be quicker to resolve if we continued to do so through their supplier management team. How can this be true?

I'd be grateful for any advice and help. I dont' know what to do. Like all of us, I work very hard to have nice things in my home, which basically was trashed by carefree and careless workers appointed by the Halifax which they are now refusing to rectify.

Many thanks, Sophie