Fraudster builder turned pensioner’s south Edinburgh home into 'death trap' in £30,000 con
Builder pleads guilty to £30k fraud after leaving elderly woman's home near collapse
A builder turned a pensioner’s new home into “a death trap” and in a state of near collapse after conning her out of £30,000.
Aaron Cummings left the OAP’s property with live wiring exposed and with poisonous fumes leaking from a boiler as he carried out the renovations.
The tradesman also left the 70-year-old customer living in the home with no working kitchen and with doors and windows boarded up that ultimately led to a rat infestation.
Cummings, 46, was paid more than £80,000 by the elderly woman after talking her into employing his company to carry out the work on the home and build an extension on the side of the house.
But after hiring a series of subcontractors he repeatedly failed to complete the work to a satisfactory standard and the homeowner was eventually forced to report him to the police.
Cummings pleaded guilty to an amended charge of fraudulently obtaining £30,000 from a woman between February 2019 and January 2021 when he appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Tuesday, September 1.
Prosecutors agreed to reduce the sum on the indictment from £82,600 after agreeing Cummings had carried out around 70 per cent of the work he was employed to carry out.
Fiscal depute Cheryl Porter told the court the pensioner was 70 at the time and had bought the property in the south of the Capital as she was downsizing from her original family home.
Ms Porter said Cummings, of Loanhead, Midlothian, had cold called looking for work and after agreeing a quote of £65,000 the woman had paid a deposit of £8000 to the tradesman in 2019.
The court heard over the following months Cummings had left property with live electrical wiring exposed and fumes from the boiler were said to have been leaking into the extension.
During the renovations the house was inspected by a second tradesman who said the work done by Cummings had left the roof with “a potential for collapse” that could have led to a fatality.
The fiscal added the customer was worried about the home’s security and inclement weather due to having no doors and windows and she had suffered “a rat infestation” due to the shoddy work.
Another tradesman who had been asked to survey the work carried out by Cummings had described the house as “a death trap after death trap”.
Eventually a family friend took over the running of the construction project and they posted an appeal on the business and employment website LinkedIn for local tradesman to step in.
The court heard several businesses in the area answered the call for help and had agreed to carry out the necessary repairs on the house free of charge.
Sheriff Douglas Keir described the fraud as “a shameful situation” and agreed to defer sentence for the preparation of reports to later this month.
But the sheriff warned the builder: “Your bail will be continued but obviously, withstanding the nature of the charges, all options are open the court.”
Solicitor advocate Kris Gilmartin said his client has a previous conviction for a similar offence and had used subcontractors to carry out work on the property.
Mr Gilmartin said: “Mr Cummings subcontracted a significant amount of the work to people who very clearly were not sufficiently qualified to carry out that work.”
The lawyer said he would reserve his full mitigation for the reports to be carried out and to allow Cummings “time to amass an amount of money to offer to the court in compensation”.