Our builder won't give receipts for materials

woodbutcher_2

I see absolutely nothing wrong with making a bit extra money on materials.The only reason i get my materials cheaper than the man in the street is because i have built up a reputation at a merchants as someone who buys a lot of materials and pays my bills on time.All businesses have mark-ups;it's a fact of life.I don't see anyone complainig when i sit for three or four hours working out a quote at night only to lose the job to someone who has undercut me and is probably signing on.No one pays me for that lost time but hey,that's the nature of the beast.Like AlanM said,if it carries on this way then the whole industry will be regulated like America and construction workers over there are on a par financially with doctors and the like.Then you will know what high bills are.

I think this thread is getting off the original point somewhat but unless people start to see tradesmen as valuable members of the economy and not chancers with a bag full of tools,then these problems are only going to multiply.

Tom_Jones

Well what an interesting thread, firstly loveandlight I would hate to have you as a client, you have employed a person who is charging you well below the going rate, you use him to go and get the materials you need, and you begrudge him making a few quid on the materials, and then you get on your high horse because you want recipts and he won't give them to you ? If he gaurentees his work at the end of the job you will not need recipts and you don't need them if you wish to write the bill off against tax.

Djohn if you were to go out and buy a house from say Redrow's for 200k how much do you think it actually cost them to build it, at a rough guess no more than 120k so they are making 80k profit do you begrudge them the profit it's called buisness, and ALL builders will mark up the cost of materials they buy

Woodbutcher up your prices mate I pay my chippies £19 an hour and they have vans supplied by me

withabix

To give you an example of inflated list prices at TP/Keyline, there are certain products I purchase for my employer which attract 85% discount off list price.

I would note however that my employer is VERY big. I mean VERY VERY VERY big. The biggest in the industry in terms of turnover.

Careful_girl

I had an awful situation with my builder a few years back and I suggest you listen to your instincts. I started to lose trust in my chap in the North East and kept trying to sort things out. I think you draw up a very clear agreement before any more work is done. If he goes then you may have saved yourself from maybe disputes in court or debt collection agencies. The office of fair trading, solicitors and other builders had little effect upon my situation. The claims are only small claims. I know you are probably far away from that but that can be the result. It only gets worse. Think hard about continuing to employ someone who you don't trust. The only way to get a good builder is through personal recommendation. Then agreements have to be clear on both sides. It doesn't matter what is reasonable or normal. You are the customer you decide but be upfront.
Loads of luck.

djohn2002uk

Tom_Jones wrote:

Djohn if you were to go out and buy a house from say Redrow's for 200k how much do you think it actually cost them to build it, at a rough guess no more than 120k so they are making 80k profit do you begrudge them the profit it's called buisness, and ALL builders will mark up the cost of materials they buy

I think you maybe out a little there, more like every other house is profit now on a large site. And as for buying one of them, no thanks, the last three show houses I looked at, the workmanship was atrocious.
I built my last house and used "tradesmen" to carry out all the work that I couldn't do and I mean tradesmen, not those who have bought a few tools from B&Q. Had good tradesmen which resulted in a very good finished product and not the cheapest by any means.
And I'll add that I had a TP account which gave me anything up to 65% off and I was NHBC registered so don't think I'm not speaking from experience, seen it all.
I don't mind paying the right price for good work and if you read my post fully you will see that I refered to a "reasonable" profit being totally acceptable but not screwing people for every penny you can get out of the materials.
I worked bl***y hard on that house as I have most of my life and mostly have been paid well for that work but if someone works for me I expect to pay him well for his work and not for some inflated price for the materials otherwise don't whinge when I offer you labour only jobs.

catkins

Do you think he is overcharging on materials? If so simply say no to him buying any and that you will supply everything. It does seem you have issues with being in control.

nelly_2

Charming init

People think 15 quid an hour is to much for a time served tradesman doing hard labour

BUt are happy to give an estate agent a few grand to take a photo of their house and put it in the local paper.

Alan_M_2

nelly wrote:

Charming init

People think 15 quid an hour is to much for a time served tradesman doing hard labour

BUt are happy to give an estate agent a few grand to take a photo of their house and put it in the local paper.

And also complain at the state of the immigration in this country, whilst employing Poles, Lithianians etc becuase they're so cheap.

loveandlight

I wouldn't bother posting anymore guys because most of you have completely lost the plot and it's clear that you are all leaving messages without even bothering to read what the situation is about.

We have never complained about our builder's labour charges. He is getting paid at the rate he wanted. We have been paying him at least £1000 per week in labour charges alone plus petrol and have been doing so without question for the past four weeks. However we are nobody's fool. We have been supplying our own materials because it is much cheaper for us, as we actually don’t have much money and aren't in a financial position to turn a blind eye to him sneaking in charges when he thinks we are not looking.

Some people here have equated our situation to shopping in Tesco's or buying a house. Well at least you are given freedom of choice in those situations and the prices are upfront for the whole world to see. If you don't want to pay their prices then you simply walk away. You don't get to the checkout and then find out there was an admittance charge and othr charges added to your bill without you knowing about it and then told you have to pay because their prices are so cheap anyway.

It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks because he has become a liability to us now and therefore has to go.We will be dismissing him tomorrow. We have made too many allowances for him already and he put us to additional expense for things like:
Starting jobs and not finishing them off
Poor workmanship,
Passing the buck,
Telling lies,
Constantly making excuses

He told us that he was a very experienced builder but after having him work for us we don’t believe that an experienced builder would work and behave the way he does.
He is very absent minded.

Arguing and doing what he thinks we should have done in our home instead of what we want e.g. he was supposed to extend a wall out in our bedroom by two feet to enlarge an adjoining room to convert it into an ensuite. We noticed that our bedroom after he had put up the framework had become very small. When we checked his measurements he had actually extended by two and a half feet and despite telling him it wasn’t what we wanted, he spent 15mins telling us how he thought it looked alright and so it should stay. After a lot of persuasion he reduced it again to what we wanted.

He broke through into the communal area ( we live in a two storey apartment) when converting our storage room and when replacing the bricks in the common areas, he used grey cement when the wall is red brick with red cement. He assured us that he would use the same colours so that the replacement bricks wouldn’t show. Now we will get into trouble with our management committee because it stands out like a sore thumb and we will have to pay someone else to put it right because he thinks there is nothing wrong with it.

When he fitted new handles on our kitchen doors, three of them were completely different. He fitted them anyway.

He damaged my brand new cooker hood the first day it arrived ( my OH saw him do it ) but he pretended it came out the box like it and fitted it anyway. So we had to arrange for a new one to be sent.

He scratched our new kitchen countertop when he installed it, right where it can be seen. Nobody will notice it he said.

He told us our new Saniflow system when he installs it, can only go between our shower and toilet because it has got openings at both ends. We found out from Saniflow that one end can be capped so we can have exactly the layout we want. He didn’t say anything about this, just muttered that he was going by what he had seen in a picture in the Saniflow brochure.

He told us that we couldn’t remove one of the small walls in our kitchen because it housed the boiler due to boiler regulations. We have since found out that it is not true either.

He also left unattended a huge electric circular diamond saw in our front garden a couple of weeks ago, when we had very hot weather. Our garden is open plan, unfenced and anyone can walk on our grass. We live at the entrance to a very popular park. He left the saw unattended for most of the afternoon and it was unguarded and still switched on at the mains. Three times I went downstairs to check on it because I was so worried about it as anyone could have played with it and we would have had a major catastrophe on our hands not to mention a fatal accident. Each time I had to switch it off again after every time he used it. I didn’t say anything at the time as he had only just started working for us.

As soon as he refused to show us the receipts for the materials that he said he would go and get for us as he had the big van, we decided that we had had enough. That was the last straw for us. To date we have no idea how much is really due because he won't show us any receipts and we have to wait until he gives us his next invoice which he will then expect us to immediately pay and he will also expect us not to query anything. That is no way to do business. This behaviour has now lost him a few thousand pounds as we don't want him working for us anymore. Not to mention that he will not be getting any recommendations fom us.

We wanted to believe that he was the good guy and that we were the unreasonable ones for expecting our job to be done properly in a professional and timely way in an open and upfront manner, because then we could have just relaxed and left him to get on with things but he spoilt it for himself in the end.

We have put up with all of this because he was recommended to us and we really liked him at the beginning. He put everything in writing for us at our request so it was his choice to work for us on a labour only basis at the price he wanted. Now we know that professionally he is a liability and therefore he has to go.

Naïve we are definitely not. He is the one who is naïve for thinking that it is okay to behave like this with people and expect to get away with it.

So tomorrow he will be dismissed. As he has so much support on here, he will be available to work for any one of you from tomorrow onwards and as you are so concerned at his hourly rate being low, I am sure he won’t mind if you pay him more.

Bossyboots

He sounds like a combination between the bloke that fitted our bedroom and the bloke that fitted our kitchen. Fortunately we had used large companies both times so were able to negotiate compensation for the mistakes made.

We have been fortunate with our builder who was recommended by a friend and has always been brilliant. He once agreed to do a little additional job for us while fixing the roof and he produced the receipts for the bits and we paid him for them. He had even got one item free as it had gone through the till incorrectly and he passed that saving on to us as well. He had bought the bits from Wickes, so we knew what prices we were expecting to pay, plus had had collected them for us but he only charged us what he had paid and nothing for the collection.