One statute does more work in homeowner building disputes than every contract clause combined, because it applies even when there’s no contract document at all.1 The Consumer Rights Act 2015 is short, readable, and worth knowing precisely, because invoking the right section at the right moment is often all a dispute needs.

When it applies

You’re a consumer (an individual acting wholly or mainly outside your trade or business) buying a service from a trader, which covers essentially all domestic building, plumbing, electrical, decorating and landscaping work, whatever the paperwork looks like.2 Where goods are supplied with the service (a boiler, a kitchen), the Act’s goods provisions run alongside: satisfactory quality, fit for purpose, as described.1

The four implied terms

1. Reasonable care and skill (s.49). The trader must perform the service with reasonable care and skill, which in practice means the standard of a reasonably competent member of the trade, measured against Building Regulations, British Standards, manufacturers’ instructions and normal trade tolerances.3 This is the section defective work claims stand on.

2. Reasonable price (s.51). Where no price was fixed in advance, you owe only what the work is reasonably worth, benchmarkable against trade day rates and market costs.4 This is the shield against the invoice that materialised at triple the estimate.

3. Reasonable time (s.52). Where no completion date was agreed, the work must finish within a reasonable time for that kind of job, the fallback that makes even a date-free contract’s overrun actionable eventually.5

4. Information that binds (s.50). Things the trader said or wrote that you took into account, “that’s included”, “we’ll match the existing brick”, “building control won’t be needed”, are treated as terms of the contract.6 Verbal assurances stop being deniable atmosphere and become enforceable promises; one more reason to confirm conversations in writing as you go.

The remedies, in order

  • Repeat performance (s.55): the trader must redo non-conforming work at their own cost, within a reasonable time, without significant inconvenience to you.7 It’s the statutory version of “come back and fix it”, and your opening position in nearly every quality dispute.
  • Price reduction (s.56): where repeat performance is impossible, or the trader fails to provide it within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience, an appropriate reduction, which can be up to 100% of the price.8 Practically, this is the right that lets you withhold proportionately or recover the cost of another firm’s remedial work.
  • Damages for consequential loss (the ruined carpet, the hotel nights) run alongside under ordinary contract law.9

The Act doesn’t hand you termination for every flaw, minor defects get fixed, not contracts ended. Where breaches are serious enough to end the relationship, the termination framework does the heavy lifting.

Invoking it well

You don’t file anything; you cite it. A complaint that says “under s.49 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 this work should have been carried out with reasonable care and skill; the attached items fall short; I require repeat performance within 14 days” moves differently from “not happy with the tiling”, it tells the trader you know the framework and forecloses the usual deflections. Escalation from there follows the standard ladder, with the Act as the consistent legal spine. The six-year time limit for claims on a simple contract, and how it interacts with older, longer regimes, is mapped in the construction law pillar.10

This guide is general information for homeowners in England and Wales, not legal advice.

References (10)

Figures in this note were checked against the sources below on 30 September 2026. Superscript numbers in the text point to them. Every source the site cites, by topic.

  1. 1technicalvery strongThe National Archives (legislation.gov.uk), guidance.RN-C5N0TCSection 1 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, which applies Part 1 to consumer contracts whether written, oral or implied from conduct.
  2. 2technicalvery strongThe National Archives (legislation.gov.uk), legislation.RN-T10BARSection 2 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, the key definitions. A trader is a person acting for purposes relating to their trade, business, craft or profession; a consumer is an individual acting for purposes wholly or mainly outside theirs. These definitions decide whether the Act's protections apply at all, which is the first question in any homeowner-versus-builder dispute and the reason a landlord or a limited company may not get them.
  3. 3technicalvery strongThe National Archives (legislation.gov.uk), legislation.RN-F06Z1FSection 49(1), in Part 1 Chapter 4 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, states that every contract to supply a service is to be treated as including a term that the trader must perform the service with reasonable care and skill. Section 49(2) directs the reader to section 54 for the consumer's rights when that implied term is breached. This is the single provision that makes poor workmanship by a builder a breach of contract without the homeowner having to prove anything was written down, and it cannot be excluded to the extent it would stop the section 54 to 56 remedies applying.
  4. 4technicalvery strongThe National Archives (legislation.gov.uk), legislation.RN-BXZ3F2Section 51 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 governs the case where no price was ever fixed. It applies where (a) the consumer has not paid a price or other consideration, (b) the contract does not expressly fix a price or say how it is to be fixed, and (c) nothing treated as included under section 50 fixes one either. Where all three apply, subsection (2) treats the contract as including a term that the consumer must pay a reasonable price and no more, and subsection (3) makes what is reasonable a question of fact. This is the provision a homeowner relies on when a trade started work on a handshake and later issued an inflated invoice: the invoice is not automatically the price.
  5. 5technicalvery strongThe National Archives (legislation.gov.uk), legislation.RN-WUJM74Section 52(1) applies where the contract does not expressly fix the time for the service to be performed or say how it is to be fixed, and where no information treated as included under section 50 fixes the time either. In that case section 52(2) treats the contract as including a term that the trader must perform the service within a reasonable time, and section 52(3) makes what is reasonable a question of fact. Section 52(4) points to section 54; the remedy for breach of the reasonable time term is a price reduction under section 56, not repeat performance. This is the provision to cite when a builder has no contractual completion date and has overrun.
  6. 6technicalvery strongThe National Archives (legislation.gov.uk), legislation.RN-EQVKC0Section 50(1) treats anything said or written to the consumer by or on behalf of the trader about the trader or the service as a term of the contract, if the consumer took it into account when deciding to enter into the contract or when making any later decision about the service. Section 50(2) subjects that to anything said on the same occasion that qualified it, and to any change expressly agreed. Section 50(3) treats information provided under regulations 9, 10 or 13 of the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 (SI 2013/3134) as contract terms, and section 50(4) makes any change to that information ineffective unless expressly agreed. This is the basis for holding a builder to a verbal promise, a written quotation figure or a stated completion date.
  7. 7technicalvery strongThe National Archives (legislation.gov.uk), legislation.RN-H89TBVSection 55(1) defines repeat performance as requiring the trader to perform the service again to the extent necessary to complete it in conformity with the contract. Section 55(2) requires the trader to provide it within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience to the consumer, and to bear any necessary costs incurred in doing so, expressly including the cost of any labour or materials. Section 55(3) removes the right where completing performance in conformity with the contract is impossible. Section 55(4) says what counts as a reasonable time or significant inconvenience is judged by the nature of the service and the purpose for which it was to be performed. This is the legal answer to a builder who offers to come back but wants paying again for the return visit.
  8. 8technicalvery strongThe National Archives (legislation.gov.uk), legislation.RN-CPGOMASection 56(1) gives the consumer the right to require the trader to reduce the price by an appropriate amount, including a refund of anything already paid above the reduced amount, and section 56(2) allows the reduction to be the full price where appropriate. Section 56(3) restricts the choice: a consumer who also has the right to repeat performance may only take a price reduction where repeat performance is impossible under section 55(3), or where the consumer required repeat performance and the trader failed to do it within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience. Section 56(4) requires any refund without undue delay and in any event within 14 days beginning with the day the trader agrees the consumer is entitled to it, section 56(5) requires the same means of payment unless the consumer expressly agrees otherwise, and section 56(6) forbids any fee for making the refund.
  9. 9technicalvery strongThe National Archives (legislation.gov.uk), legislation.RN-ZQCZ3ZSection 54(3) gives the consumer two statutory remedies where the service does not conform to the contract: the right to require repeat performance under section 55 and the right to a price reduction under section 56. Section 54(4) gives a price reduction where the trader breaches a section 50 term that does not relate to the service itself, and section 54(5) gives a price reduction for breach of the section 52 reasonable time requirement. Crucially section 54(6) preserves other remedies instead of or in addition to these, provided the consumer does not recover twice for the same loss, and section 54(7) lists them: claiming damages, recovering money paid where the consideration has failed, specific performance, specific implement, relying on the breach against the trader's own claim under the contract, and treating the contract as at an end. Section 54(1) confirms these rights do not displace consistent contractual rights.
  10. 10technicalvery strongThe National Archives (legislation.gov.uk), legislation.RN-L5C0B9Section 5 of the Limitation Act 1980: an action founded on simple contract cannot be brought more than six years after the cause of action accrued. This is the six-year limit on suing a builder over a contract that was not executed as a deed, and it runs from the breach, not from when the defect was discovered. The single most important date in a dispute about defective work.

  1. Consumer Rights Act 2015, section 1, legislation.gov.uk, accessed 30 September 2026. legislation.gov.uk

  2. Consumer Rights Act 2015, section 2, legislation.gov.uk, accessed 30 September 2026. legislation.gov.uk

  3. Consumer Rights Act 2015, section 49, legislation.gov.uk, accessed 30 September 2026. legislation.gov.uk

  4. Consumer Rights Act 2015, section 51, legislation.gov.uk, accessed 30 September 2026. legislation.gov.uk

  5. Consumer Rights Act 2015, section 52, legislation.gov.uk, accessed 30 September 2026. legislation.gov.uk

  6. Consumer Rights Act 2015, section 50, legislation.gov.uk, accessed 30 September 2026. legislation.gov.uk

  7. Consumer Rights Act 2015, section 55, legislation.gov.uk, accessed 30 September 2026. legislation.gov.uk

  8. Consumer Rights Act 2015, section 56, legislation.gov.uk, accessed 30 September 2026. legislation.gov.uk

  9. Consumer Rights Act 2015, section 54, legislation.gov.uk, accessed 30 September 2026. legislation.gov.uk

  10. Limitation Act 1980, section 5, legislation.gov.uk, accessed 30 September 2026. legislation.gov.uk