Around 4.8million households have been left with the consequences of shoddy home repair work, findings claim. 

Citizens Advice said millions have had problems with work carried out in their homes in the past 18 months.

'Consumers being left to fend for themselves in a home repairs market with little effective oversight', the charity said. 

Problems flagged by Citizens Advice included households living with unfinished or unsafe work and disputes with traders. 

Around 1.7million households had to fork out more money to fix earlier work or were overcharged, and they lost on average £750, Citizens Advice said. 

For one in ten, the extra costs soared to more than £5,000, it added.

More than a third of homeowners said the problems with their home repairs made them feel stressed, while just over one in 10 said they made them feel unsafe.

Citizens Advice said home repairs generated nearly 37,000 complaints to its consumer service last year.

Lack of trust a growing issue 

The charity said 'growing distrust in the market is having real consequences for consumers and taking business away from trustworthy traders.'

Around 28 per cent of people who had arranged home repairs in the last 18 months ended up carrying out work themselves because they did not think they could find a trustworthy trader. 

Around 26 per cent delayed or avoided repairs altogether for the same reason. 

It is common for households to do their homework before hiring a tradesperson. 

Online review sites and schemes are often used by households to give an indication of how reliable and trustworthy a tradesperson is. 

But Citizens Advice said undertaking due diligence before appointing a tradesperson for a job did not always protect consumers against shoddy workmanship and practices. 

Citizens Advice said the provision of better information for households alone 'cannot fix deeper issues in the market.' 

The findings said a low level of trust in the home repairs market was shaping how people find traders, with many relying on informal recommendations rather than formal systems, like government backed schemes, that they find confusing or difficult to verify. 

Just over a third of people who used a trader in the last 18 months found them through someone they know, while one in five who used an approved or accredited trader said it was difficult to verify their credentials. 

Energy efficiency improvement often complained about  

The charity said it has helped people who had faced spiralling costs, poor-quality workmanship and significant delays after hiring traders for home repairs. 

In some cases it dealt with, consumers had been charged thousands of pounds more than expected, left with unfinished or unsafe work, or struggled to get traders to return and put problems right. 

Others faced 'persistent' demands for payment despite disputes over the quality of work carried out.

Among those who experienced problems with home repairs, the most commonly cited issues related to energy efficiency improvements, room renovations and installations, and external walls and roofing projects, Citizens Advice said. 

Complaint resolution far from easy 

The charity said when home repairs or renovations do go wrong: 'Many face a maze of complaints processes and dead ends, and struggle to get responses, refunds or accountability when things go wrong.'

More than four in five of more than 5,000 people surveyed by Citizens Advice said they faced 'barriers' when trying to resolve a complaint about shoddy home repairs or other related problems. 

One in five said the process took a long time, 16 per cent said the trader ignored them and 15 per cent said they did not know how to escalate the issue beyond the trader.

At present, alternative dispute resolution in the sector is voluntary and requires traders to opt in, limiting routes for consumers to resolve disputes.

Citizens Advice wants the Government to review how the home repairs sector is regulated, including introducing mandatory licensing and widening access to redress. 

The charity said a single register for traders would help raise standards across the market and better protect homeowners. 

Dame Clare Moriarty, chief executive of Citizens Advice, said: 'Too many people are being let down in their own homes by traders turning routine repairs into stressful ordeals when things go wrong.

'Consumers aren’t just facing minor issues - they’re losing significant sums of money, living with unfinished or unsafe work and are being left to fend for themselves to get problems resolved.

'When homeowners can’t trust a market where millions are spent every year, it damages confidence across the industry, while also making it harder for trustworthy traders to compete and thrive.'

She added: 'Stronger consumer protections are needed, including a single register for traders and a clearer mandatory route to resolve disputes, raising standards across the industry as a whole.'

Had a home repair nightmare? editor@thisismoney.co.uk