There’s a stack of bricks dumped my garden… can I sell them? You’ll never guess my surprising answer, says lawyer DEAN DUNHAM… here’s the ‘finders keepers’ rules explained

I hired a local bricklayer to build new walls in my garden. He dropped off a stack of bricks, bags of sand and rubble and a tarpaulin, but never showed up to do the job. That was three months ago.

I’ve asked him to collect the materials, but he won’t reply. Can I legally get rid of them – or maybe sell them?

C.P., Essex.

Dean Dunham replies: To legally dispose or sell the materials you will need to establish what is known in law as ‘abandonment’ – meaning that the bricklayer has intentionally and voluntarily relinquished his right to the materials. To treat the materials as abandoned, you must show the bricklayer has firstly failed to complete the job, then ignored repeated requests to collect the materials and, finally, left the materials for a significant period. Three months is generally long enough.

Importantly, abandonment is not automatic. The law requires clear evidence that the owner has no intention of reclaiming the property. With this in mind, I would advise you to take photographs of the materials and create a schedule, describing precisely what has been left at your property.

Then, send the bricklayer a letter or email enclosing the schedule of the materials, which says that you will dispose of or sell them unless they are collected from your property by a certain date.

‘To legally dispose or sell the materials you will need to establish what is known in law as abandonment,’ writes Dean Dunham

This would typically be somewhere between 14 and 28 days. Don’t provide less notice than this, as while the law does not specifically state how much time the owner of abandoned property should be given to collect it, it does state it should be a ‘reasonable’ amount of time.

You could also tell the bricklayer that you will charge storage fees if the materials are not collected, as this may encourage him to deal with the matter swiftly.

After these steps, and if the bricklayer still fails to respond, you will be within your rights to sell or dispose of the materials.

My wedding day last month was perfect… except there were wasps everywhere. They were swarming at the drinks reception, landing on guests’ plates and had many swatting and shrieking throughout the speeches.

The wedding was a package with one firm that included the venue, meal and everything else. Can I ask them for compensation? What am I entitled to?

J.B., East Sussex.

Wasps were swarming at the drinks reception, landing on guests’ plates and had many swatting and shrieking throughout the speeches

Dean Dunham replies: You will have entered into a written contract with the venue, which may have contained specific wording in relation to the service you would receive. Your first step is therefore to look at this contract and to check if the wasp infestation breached any of the terms.

Don’t worry if it doesn’t, as the Consumer Rights Act 2015 can wade in and save the day. Under this law your venue provider had a legal obligation to provide its services – in this case, the use of the wedding venue and all that comes with it – with ‘reasonable care and skill’.

This means providing a premises that was in a suitable condition to host a wedding reception. A wasp infestation that disrupted the reception, speeches and guests’ comfort clearly falls foul of this, especially if the provider could have reasonably anticipated or mitigated the issue by using pest control, for example, which must be the case here.

The venue’s failure, therefore, amounts to a breach of the Consumer Rights Act and a breach of contract.

In these circumstances you will be entitled to a remedy, which would be a partial refund or price reduction to take account of the issue and your diminished enjoyment of the day, and potentially compensation to cover any losses you sustained, as well as distress and inconvenience.