Homeowners left with tumbledown properties after Elegant Construction's shoddy building work - and bills totalling thousands of pounds

He was just one of a number of furious readers who contacted Streetwise accusing home improvement company Elegant Construction of rogue trading for refusing to return more than £123,000 in advance payments.

Elegant Construction’s boss, John Lepp first came to our attention when running a firm called Sage Windows in Shedfield – and leaving behind a string of unhappy customers.

Then, at the beginning of this year, he began to appear on our radar again, with carbon copy stories from across the south of failing to do the promised work, and leaving householders with further bills for repairs to achieve compliance with building regulations.

Steve says he signed up with the firm in July when he was required to put down an initial deposit of £17,343 and agree to weekly stage payments of £5,203.

Logistics manager Steve, 43, explained the work was scheduled to be completed in 10 weekly stages, but was compelled to call a halt when the job had fallen well behind four of the stage payments totalling £20,812, and his complaints to Mr Lepp fell on deaf ears.

His surveyor also pinpointed a number of serious construction defects calculating he was owed £18,581 in overpayments.

Despite the significant breach of contract, Steve says Mr Lepp persisted in demanding ongoing advance payments. When he refused to pay up until the situation was sorted, he claims he was left in the lurch and the project effectively abandoned.

‘It was shambolic,’ he said. ‘The builders kept going home early, and our surveyor’s report confirmed most of the construction would have to be knocked down to damp proof course level and rebuilt.

‘We arranged a meeting at our house with me and my wife Yvonne and the surveyor. Lepp refused to turn up and sent his two project mangers, both of whom stormed out after one told my wife to eff off.

‘We’ve terminated the contract, just pleased he’s now out of our lives and we can get another company to come and complete the work to a proper standard. Although he’s refused to refund a penny, we won’t give up pursuing him.’

Furious Reader Tatiana Dent has been locked in a dispute with Elegant Construction since May when her major £75,000 home improvement upgrade went wrong and she ended up being forced out her home for 19 weeks.

She says it wasn’t long before the eight-week outbuilding and kitchen revamp work she’d signed up to ran into a series of delays and problems, turning into an unfinished eyesore. The workforce stopped turning up, but Mr Lepp became increasingly abusive and intimidating when she complained.

Following a damming surveyor’s report concluding the property had been left in a defective and dangerous condition, her solicitor insisted she was due a refund of over £55,000 in advance payments on terminating the contract.

Despite most of the construction would have to be demolished, Mr Lepp persisted in claiming 60-year-old Tatiana’s fight to get her money back was groundless, and her complaint was a pack of lies.

She said: ‘I was completely taken in, but when things started to go wrong and his abusive mails began to arrive on querying payment, it was frightening. That’s why I want warn others about being conned and threatened by a man who appears immune from being restrained by the law or trading standards.’

An outraged Lee Pitcher, 55, got in touch to say he bitterly regrets the day he was persuaded to sign up in June with Elegant Construction to build a £36,400 single-storey extension with a new porch and wet room.

He forked out a deposit of £9,100 and agreed to 8 weekly stage payments of £3,412.

He says the chaotic job was doomed from the beginning when it was weeks late in starting. His surveyor subsequently condemned the brickwork, and as a result of endless construction delays, he cancelled the contract. He was left appointing new builders to correct the botched building works and chasing Mr Lepp for £19,674 in excess payments.

When he complained he claims he was unable to get any answers apart from a diatribe of personal abuse and invective when he insisted on the refund.

Lee didn’t mince his words. ‘He’s the rudest, most abusive, foul-mouthed piece of work I’ve ever met’, he said. ‘He made statements about me on social media and my works website in different names claiming I had mental health issues. That’s how low he will go.

‘We will be seeking full redress once our contractors finish the rebuild before Christmas.’

Equally scathing, self-employed Lizel Drucker and teacher husband Simon told Streetwise the £30,121 they paid Elegant Construction for their eight-week kitchen makeover in June has gone straight down the drain with nothing to show for it.

The ink was hardly dry on the contract when after very little work was started their surveyor discovered the foundations would not be approved by the local planning authority or Thames Water. They would all have to be taken up and changed. What work had been done was totally worthless but Mr Lepp point-blank refused to return their deposit and advance payments.

Lizel said: ‘Not once did he address any of our concerns or complaints seriously. After our first complaints about delays he told us to back off. He didn’t once try to find a practical way to deal with us, glossing over any complaints.’

Mr Lepp, 56, was at the centre of controversy in 2019 when his Shedfield business Sage Windows and Doors (not to be confused with a reputable Swanmore company with a similar name) came to the attention of Hampshire trading standards after Streetwise flagged up numerous reader complaints.

It ostensibly went into hibernation when he was compelled to refund thousands of pounds in retained deposits to furious customers for work that had been seriously delayed or never carried out. In mid October it was given notice of compulsory strike-off by Companies House regulators for failing to file accounts.

When we tried to get in touch at his Elegant Construction upmarket head office in Kensington High Street, London, It turned out to be an accommodation address.

Streetwise had detected a number of potential issues our complainants had brought to light including matters concerning their statutory rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, the Consumer Contracts Cancellation and Additional Charges Regulations 2013, and Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.

When we asked him to explain, a shameless Mr Lepp refused to accept the complainants had lost faith in his unscrupulous empty promises, arguing their expert evidence was unreliable, and insisting they were all liars.

When we asserted his reaction to more than a dozen carbon-copy complaints received by this column was preposterous and lacked credibility, we were subjected to a quarrelsome tirade of personal abuse.

‘These people are not being truthful,’ he persisted. ‘They’ve been asked to explain themselves to us but have not. They breached their contracts some of which were half-way through and we have been denied the opportunity to remedy or complete the work.’

Because of the volume and seriousness of complaints, Streetwise is assembling a file for forwarding to Kensington and Chelsea and Surrey trading standards.

A Portsmouth trading standards team spokesperson underlined our previous warnings about the importance of adequate background research before taking on tradespersons or contractors to do repairs or big renovation projects.

He said: ‘Check the company is registered and has the right insurance policies in place, get to know them before agreeing to any work, and always ask for references from previous customers.

‘You can shop around for trusted traders that have been trading standards approved using the Buy With Confidence website www.buywithconfidence.gov.uk

‘On larger projects where staged payments are built into the contract, make sure it's clear what these payments represent. We strongly advise not using cash as a payment method. Paying by cheque, credit card, bank transfer etc. creates a record of payment should something go wrong.

‘Citizens Advice has lots of good information about what to do before you begin building work and if people in Portsmouth do run into problems with unscrupulous traders, our trading standards team is here to help and to make sure businesses are complying with the law.’