Builders and Reliability!

Useless bastard. Get shot of him. This is a DIY forum so why not do just that?

On Tuesday 27 August 2013 07:29 paulfoel wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Bit of a sticky wicket. Stage payments are reasonable, but the completion payment (that should be a significant fraction) must be held until all works are actually complete.

Stop the cheque, apologise for the misunderstanding and tell him it will be given on completion.

Don't touch him with a bargepole again.

There is no correlation between "quality of work" and "unpredictable". (ie you are not employing a prima donna who is somehow a genius).

Inclement weather?

I do know that a lot of tradesmen really do need to hire a manager, as being good at what you do is not the same as being reliable. Not crooks but just as you say, incapable of running to a realistic schedule. The knack is to not take on jobs you cannot do in the time, as to do that means you flit from one to another and get in an awful mess and piss off everybody equally. Up the prices take less jobs and pace yourself. Brian

Find someone else.

In the case of staged payments, you must agree what the stages and payment proportion are up front. There must always be enough payment outstanding to use to get another builder to finish the job, and the last payment mustn't be until the whole job is finished, site tidied, etc. You can't do staged payments if you aren't there to inspect the work and don't trust the builder - the outcome is all too obvious.

Another option for staged payments is to have someone else work for you (architect or surveyer) who inspects and decides when the payments will be made. My parents did this for a loft extension, and it was the architect who decided when staged payments were due, each time after inspecting the work. The last payment was actually 6 months after completion, to allow for snagging fixes. Builders were fine with this (and did a really good job). The schedule also included late completion penalties, and the builders were actually late finishing, but my parents chose not to invoke the penalty because they considered the builders to have done a very good job and there wasn't any slacking.

The classic case is plumbers who IME are *always* late. The simple reason is usually that everywhere they go there's a new can of worms, and no amount of management will change that

Any decent builder ought to be as that outlines the "Minor Works Building Contract". This lays down who is responsible for what, insurance liabilites, site handovers, payment schedule, retention amount/period etc, etc.

Much better than "Yeah I can do that, should be about £1000. Start next Wednesday?"

The latter might be OK for a couple of days work laying a patio or buildinga deck but anything that needs planning or design, like a loft conversion/conservatory/extension, really ought to have such a contract.

As to the OP, the work hasn't been done. Stop the cheque (note that may well generate a bank charge(s), once for stopping it and possibly again for bouncing it, banks...). Contact him to tell him the cheque has been stopped an explain why, also tell him that his general disorganisation has cost him the contract for the other works/conservatory (assuming you can still get out of that). It might just give him the boot up the backside to get better organised. You of course have to find another good builder...

Staged payments to a small builder are fine - to cover materials and even wages. But make sure they don't give him his profit. ;-)

Stubbs or O'Reilly ?

This seems to be endemic among builders. I have a fellow who's worked for me off and on for the past several years. Nice bloke, does a good job, but REALLY disorganised - little forward planning. Also sometimes fails to turn up when promised.

I suspect that when he commits to things he genuinely intends to do them but 'something crops up' and his attention is diverted. If I had carried on like that in my business life I'd have been out of a job long ago. But as I say it seems endemic among jobbing builders.

AWEM

Problem is the next job pressing him to start. If he doesn't, they might get someone else in. Not so easy if a start has been made. Hence if your job has over-run even slightly...

Mine usually isn't.

But then, he is German.

Owain

Invoices are invoices and must be paid without question! What is your name?

But 19% VAT. B-)

:-) Maybe the OP has a Gnome yo insert.

Don't tell him Pike....

I've been waiting ages for that.

I'm here all week.....

I tried the chicken, it wasn't very good.