We've been having a new Kitchen fitted, but we needed a small amount of building work doing first. Nothing I couldn't have done myself but time constraints made it impractical. The Kitchen Designer introduced us to a builder that she uses regularly. He gave us a quote with just the total amount shown. When he handed it over he tapped me on the arm and said that would be the price for cash, wink. No skin of my nose really, but when I looked at his total I thought it was slightly on the high side, though not outrageously so.
Anyway a few days later we signed the contract for the Kitchen and given that we were spending more there than expected, we asked the builder if there was anyway we could reduce his bill, perhaps by taking some of the jobs back off him. He agreed that there were a few things we could do ourselves and he would reduce his Bill accordingly.
I asked him to give us an updated quotation, unfortunately this has never been forthcoming and furthermore, we were a little naive in allowing him to start the work. We'd already agreed that since there was an 8 week lead time on the Kitchen, that he could come for a day here and there if he ever had an odd day free. He was supposed to come a week before the Kitchen fitters in order to do the bulk of the work. He came and blocked up an old external doorway that wasn't needed anymore. The house is stone built and the job was so good that you can't tell there has ever been a door there except for the stone lintel that's still in place. He's a friendly chap, and he and his team have done good work, but despite asking him several times, we never got the updated quotation. In the end, they turned up a day late to start the bulk of the work, and only worked half a day on a couple of days that week. Then they ended up coming back at the weekend because they were in danger of delaying the Kitchen fitters. They came back and finished a small amount of plastering after the bulk of the kitchen units had been fitted. Not something I was entirely happy about given the cost of the units.
Anyway, he's now finished his work and I still hadn't received an updated quotation despite asking him several times. To give you some idea, his original price was about =A35700. Whenever I asked him how much it would now cost, he just said things like "I'm not sure, I don't have the figures but should be around 2". He said this a couple of times and it concerned me, because he never said 2 of what. 2 apples,=A32 or =A32000. The way he said it, the only thing I could think he meant was =A32000 but he never said and as the job progressed I began to realise he couldn't possibly do the work for only =A32000.
Last week he rang me and finally gave me some figures. Now instead of charging me for the work he has actually done, he's taken his original quote and reduced it by the cost of the work he hasn't done. The problem is that I don't think he's reduced it by anywhere near enough. If I'd known in advance that he would only be reducing it by this amount, I would simply have said go ahead and do the lot then, or I might have said hold fire then while I get a comparative quote.
To give an example, one of the jobs we took back off him was to fit 4 solid oak doors and 4 solid oak door casings. We took this job back because my Dad is a retired joiner and he likes to help us when he can. In the end, I couldn't find solid oak doors at a price I was prepared to pay so I ended up getting some veneered oak doors from B&Q at a cost of =A385 for three of them and =A399 for the fourth. They look good, and are very heavy even though they're not the real thing. The builder saw the doors and I told him where we'd got them from and why. Now when he's worked out what he's reducing his original bill by, he's only allowed =A3100 per door and =A3150 for fitting them all, bearing in mind that his quote was for 'solid oak doors/casings'. My Dad and I spent all day on this job on Saturday and only managed to install 2 doors and 3 frames, no architraves and no door furniture yet.
Halfway through the job, he asked if I could give him =A31000 for the work they'd already completed. I know it's not ideal but I agreed because I felt they'd done enough work to justify that amount. When he rang last week, he asked if he could have another =A31000 at the weekend and we could settle the rest in a week or so.
OK, so here's what I did. I paid him another =A31000 at the weekend, but I also gave him a letter in which I said that the 2nd instalment was a 'good will' gesture while we tried to come to an agreement on his costs. I pointed out that we had never accepted his original quote in any way and had repeatedly asked him for an updated quote. I finished by asking him for a fully costed breakdown of the work that he had done. In addition, while pointing out that his approach was wrong in using his original quote as a starting point, I did give him a list of cost reductions that I thought would have been more realistic in using that approach. And although I haven't told him this yet, I would be happy to settle the matter if he accepted my proposed reductions.
Final point, he's quite a likeable chap, he does reasonably good work, the stonework he did couldn't have been better, but he was slow to get started and he has had to work weekends which shouldn=92t' have been needed. I know ours isn't the only job he's been looking after over the last few weeks. Right up to his phone call, I only considered that he'd been too busy to give me the updated costs, not that he was being deliberately devious. Even now I'm hoping that this is still the case and we can come to a reasonable agreement, but I have to face up to the fact that maybe I've been a little too trusting.
So what do you think? Is there anything else I should be doing now or should I bide my time and see how he reacts? There's no doubt in my mind that I still owe him money, but I'm not prepared to give him any more until we reach an agreement on the final total. I'm also wondering where we each stand from a legal viewpoint.
For any of you who feel the need to reply suggesting how foolish I've been, don't bother. You can't possible be as critical as I have been on myself these last few days.
Thanks