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A fake builder who scammed 11 people out of more than £1million and left families with wrecked homes has been jailed for three years.

Richard Nicholls, 38, an estate agent and salesman, had no experience in construction when he started taking on the building work.

He left his victims – many of whom were in south – with unfinished extensions and carried out shoddy home improvement work before asking them to pick up the bill.

Nicholls, from Shropshire, blew £52,000 of the £1.1million scammed from victims on his gambling habit, Southwark Council said.

He also took money in advance of carrying out the work, services and EvDen evE NaKLiyAt materials that he never bought or EVDeN EVe NakLiYaT paid for, the authority said.

Nicholls ran four companies when he carried out the fraud over two years and 10 months between February 2016 and December 2018. 

He left some victims without anywhere to live and having spent their life savings. The costs to his victims also included the expense of putting the work right.

Sub-contractors would often harass customers for payment because Nicholls had not paid for their work either. For more information regarding EvdeN eVe nakLiYAT check out our website.  

The rogue builder was caught after his customers told trading standards officers he would take money from them upfront for work that was never completed and in some cases never even started. 

When questioned by police, EvDEn eve naKLiyat he admitted having no formal building work qualifications and said his background was in estate agency and sales.

<div class="art-ins mol-factbox floatRHS news" data-version="2" id="mol-6dfc0fe0-85f9-11ed-9f93-294d8b3ca301" website builder, 38, who scammed 11 people out of more than £1M is jailed