UK Construction and Law
Two one star reviews of a builder are defamatory in part and the judge urges both sides to mediate
By Staff Writer | 13 October 2026
A contractor working in Devon and Cornwall sued a customer over two online reviews. The court has now fixed what they meant, separated opinion from fact and asked both sides to think again before going further.
Most arguments about domestic building work end in an adjudication or a county court claim. This one reached the King's Bench Division, and on 12 October the court decided what two one star reviews of the contractor meant.
The claimant builds domestic buildings in Devon and Cornwall. In April 2023 a couple engaged it to carry out work on their house in Plymouth. The customer was dissatisfied. On a date before 9 August 2024 he posted a review warning readers off the company, describing the work as terrible and the additional costs as extortionate, and saying that the company had promised in writing to pay for another contractor to put the work right and had not done so. Fifteen photographs and videos of building work appeared beneath the text in the hearing bundle, and the customer says there were some fifty. A second review followed in January 2025, shorter, with a single video lasting thirty seconds.
The claim is for libel. Before truth, honest opinion or serious harm can be tried, the court has to settle four questions: what the words mean to an ordinary reader, which parts are statements of fact and which are opinion, whether the basis of any opinion was indicated, and whether the meaning crosses the common law threshold of being defamatory. Those issues were tried on 5 October, after an order in May that there be a hearing rather than a decision on the papers.
What the reviews were held to mean
The first review was held to mean that the company did building work on the reviewer's house, almost every aspect of which was of extremely poor quality, that it charged additional costs which were grossly excessive, that it had failed to honour a written promise to pay for another contractor to carry out corrective work so that legal action was increasingly likely, and that it should not be trusted to take on building projects for other customers. The judge treated the quality of the work, the excessiveness of the charges and the warning to other customers as opinion. The rest, including the unhonoured promise and the money spent putting the work right, was factual.
The second review was held to mean that the company attempted to build an extension, that its workmanship was poor in numerous respects, that the reviewer was obliged to spend thousands of pounds on corrective work and that the company should not be trusted with other customers' projects. Whether poor workmanship was fact or opinion was closer to the line, because no photographs were attached to that review, but in context it was read as the writer's own evaluation of the job done at his own house. Both reviews were held to indicate, at least in general terms, the basis of the opinions they carried, and both were held to be defamatory at common law.
Right-thinking people expect building contractors to be able to demonstrate competent workmanship and trust them to complete a job without the need to incur expensive corrective work
Mr Justice Eardley, King's Bench Division
The headline did the damage, and the case goes on
The body of each review was about the reviewer's own job. It was the headline on each, warning other customers off the company altogether, that widened the complaint into a general attack on competence and reliability, and the judge found that it went beyond inviting readers to think twice. The factual assertion that the work had to be corrected at great cost then sharpened the harm. That the reviews were in part opinion, and that any business online attracts the full range of customer comment, did not defeat the claim, although both points may matter when serious harm falls to be decided.
The parties are to agree an order. Costs after a preliminary issues trial of this kind are usually costs in the case, statements of case will be amended, and the matter returns to the assigned master. The judge also pressed both sides towards mediation, observing that very few of the customers who post negative reviews are sued, and that most businesses manage the effects of a review they regard as unfair by answering it.
For a contractor the lesson is about price rather than principle. The route is open, the meanings have been fixed, and nothing has yet been decided about whether the criticisms were true, whether an honest person could have held the opinions, or whether the company's reputation suffered serious harm. All of that is still to come, and somebody will pay for it.