Upset builder

villabadger

Deladuro wrote: »

Well, it took a wee while, but the bill came in this morning from Mr.B.

He is asking for £100 'Consultancy Fee' for advising on the conservatory.

What should I do?

I don't really want to get involved in any unpleasant legal wranglings.

Either tell him to take a hike or just ignore him.

Out of interest, what did you pay him to do the chimney and guttering works?

Unless you had agreed to a charge for his advice then you have absolutely no obligation to give him anything.

Deladuro

villabadger wrote: »

Out of interest, what did you pay him to do the chimney and guttering works?

Unless you had agreed to a charge for his advice then you have absolutely no obligation to give him anything.

We paid around £1800 for the 3 days work - it didn't feel like a particular bargain at the time. Another local builder had quoted us around £2300 for the work which would have included replacing all the guttering and painting this, as well as the chimney work.

There was no mention of payment at the time of the conservatory advice.

KateLiana27

Consider yourself to have had a lucky escape from him. Your wife has obviously got good instincts when it comes to dodgy builders.

All tradespeople build the cost of giving quotes into their overheads. It's part of the business. Everyone knows standard practice is to get 3 quotes for each job; so, 2 out of 3 jobs you quote on will use someone else. If it's a very complex and time-consuming quote, a tradesperson might reasonably advise there will be a charge for it, refundable if you take up the work. But the key is that this must be agreed in advance, not applied retrospectively. That's ridiculous and smacks of sour grapes.

Unless the £100 "consultancy fee" was agreed in advance (and he can prove this to be the case), he has no right charging for it afterwards. A formal letter back advising him that no such fee was agreed and therefore will not be paid under any circumstances, should suffice. Keep it brief and professional, and cc it to a lawyer friend if you have one

DaftyDuck

I'm not sure I would even waste the cost of a stamp to reply.

He was offered a chance to tender for work. You chose not to use him. You do not have to give any reason for that. The earlier advice at house purchase time was just the same - advice, a potential job in the offing. You could easily have had three builders in at purchase time - should you expect to pay each of them as well. Had it been a professional report that required payment, he would have asked for it at the time he billed for the earlier guttering work.The fact he didn't makes it 100% clear that no cost was involved in any way whatsoever.

Your wife did a sensible thing in choosing another builder. All he is doing now is damaging his local reputation.

paddy's_mum

I'd pay the money. It's 'only' £100. It shuts him up, it gets him off your back, you avoid what you yourself describe as unpleasant legal wrangling, and you get to sleep in priceless peace at night. A half hour with a solicitor will cost you at least that much.

Mr Builder, on the other hand, will have thrown away his reputation for peanuts. Looked at it this light, who will have got the better deal? I'm blowed if I'd be willing to lose the respect of my fellows, my reputation and future work for a pathetic, measly £100.

He doesn't deserve it and your wife's gut instinct was spot on but sometimes it's worth a small outlay to get rid of a big headache. Pity all of life's problems can't be solved so easily and cheaply.

kerri_gt

Unless you have a some kind of contract for this so called 'consultancy work' I don't think he has a leg to stand on. Plus given that it has taken him nearly 6 weeks to send the bill I think he knows full well he's chancing it.

He's doing nothing but damage his repuation. I admit that I might be a bit peeved in his situation if he'd thought he had the big job in the bag but tbh, work is work and if you paid him for the other jobs then he's not out of pocket. From what you also say his work on the smaller jobs he did wasnt' 100% (not painting the guttering as agreed, not checking the other guttering as agreed etc) would not engourage me to have used him for the bigger job anyway - if he's not meeting all agreements on these small things, what's he not going to do on the bigger jobs?

I would be tempted to seal the envelope back up and mark it RTS, or you could simply file it an igore it. Paying it as OP suggests is admitting that there was some consultancy agreement and I wouldn't be surprised if he then tried to send another invoice for some imaginary agreement in the future.

phill99

You need to remember that in law it is up to him to prove that he owes you money and not for you to prove that you don't.

I would be tempted to let him carry on with his petty actions and see where it goes. He knows that he hasn't got a leg to stand on and is just using scare tactics.

Even if he it does end up in court

villabadger

Deladuro wrote: »

We paid around £1800 for the 3 days work - it didn't feel like a particular bargain at the time. Another local builder had quoted us around £2300 for the work which would have included replacing all the guttering and painting this, as well as the chimney work.

Holy cow! I would say that he has already 'milked' you to claw back his 'losses'. 3 days to do what? I have just re-newed my roof for £2200 in 3 days. Sounds more like a con-man rather than a builder.

buglawton

Hehe I misread your moniker at 1st glance as "villabodger! !

leveller2911

Its all part of the game.Most tradesmen including myself have done small jobs in the hope that we get the cream as well as the c r a p and when you don't get the decent jobs then its a pain but thats life.

I was always told to do the small jobs as they tend to lead on to the larger jobs but they rarely lead on to the decent work nowdays.

I have also had on more than one occasion clients contact me(after Ive quoted for the work but been unsuccessful) to either put someone elses work right or even pop round and finish off someone elses work as the builder has moved on to the next job(flippin cheek)

To the OP well done for at least having the good manners to let the guys know they weren't successfull...