pay or no pay till jobs finished

the3evans

Hi All,

I'm about to get a few qoutes from builders for a garage conversion and need some info.

Do you pay as the jobs going on or wait till they have finished?

i've heard a few stories of builders being payed and then disappering.

matt

phill99

I run a maintenance company and you will be lucky to find anyone that will only accept payment at the end. We undertook a Garage conversion a few months ago and it came in at just under £9k.

We had a 25% deposit, 35% when the windows and knock through had been completed, 35% at practical completion and 5% on retention payable after 28 days. (The retention was my suggestion to the client - they were happy to pay 40% on practical completion).

So get a payment schedule up front and stick to it. If a company only want cash, avoid them.

Ask for references and try and see examples of their work.

Others will come along and say only pay when its complete, but that is pure fantasy at the moment.

freezspirit

Depends, labour or materials and labour?

jkpd

I would never ask or expect a deposit, reguarly go 20-30k,but normaly on larger jobs would only go 1 month which can be 20-30k ,asking for a deposit IMO is taking the wet stuff.

tigeress289

I am with Phill on this one. Why would I not want a deposit. Any builder working with no deposit in these times is asking for trouble. I am owed 22K from contractors who cannot get the money off clients. There are a lot of people out there conning builders, which the media does not show. It is always the so called, cowboy builder as the guilty party. It is down to how you find the builder and using an old fashioned word called trust. Set out your plan and stick to a payment system. Just make sure from the off that there are no extras. The garage sounds a straight forward build and cannot see any problems. If you find a builder that does not want a deposit, then that cant be bad. Good Luck with the build..

missprice

just to add

around 5 years ago I had lots of work done by different people on my house
a wall at 2 k (really big wall) was 1/3 deposit 1/3 later and final 1/3 on completion
2 exterior doors fitted were pay after completion
3 windows were pay up front
I nearly had a heart attack at paying up front and would have preferred half up front and half on completion but it wasn't an option
so armed with that info I would pay in increments if at all poss
and certainly for bigger projects pay as you go along.
just because I could not afford to lose a whole lot of money:)

bobthedambuilder

Could I be a little bit inventive and suggest the following: Material cost will be about 30% or so of the total (guess). Pay the builder 30% on delivery of materials (not upfront). He will have an account with the builder's merchant so that will give him cash flow to pay his bills. Work out a schedule of partial completions for the balance - say 10% for founds, 10% for floor slab, 15% for walls, 15% for roof, 10% for 2nd fix (windows, electrics etc), 5% for completion and a 5% retention for as long as you can keep it (1 month, 3 months?), to deal with any snags or making good that comes to light once you start using the building. I think that comes to 100%. Staged payments allow the builder to pay his labour costs as they are incurred, thus less likelihood of him not being able to complete. And if he does fail, you've only paid for what you've got.

shebangs

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DVardysShadow

bobthedambuilder wrote: »

Could I be a little bit inventive and suggest the following: Material cost will be about 30% or so of the total (guess). Pay the builder 30% on delivery of materials (not upfront). He will have an account with the builder's merchant so that will give him cash flow to pay his bills. Work out a schedule of partial completions for the balance - say 10% for founds, 10% for floor slab, 15% for walls, 15% for roof, 10% for 2nd fix (windows, electrics etc), 5% for completion and a 5% retention for as long as you can keep it (1 month, 3 months?), to deal with any snags or making good that comes to light once you start using the building. I think that comes to 100%. Staged payments allow the builder to pay his labour costs as they are incurred, thus less likelihood of him not being able to complete. And if he does fail, you've only paid for what you've got.

I agree. Trouble can come if your payments are ever ahead of the amount of work done. Decent builders don't ask for a payment schedule going above this line. Those who do ask above this line realise that their profit in hand will be maximised part way through the job - and then they end up paying this profit back to finish the job - so they prefer to leave your job and take the next one to the point of maximum profit in hand.

jkpd

Bobthedambuilder is on the right track,do not pay anything until you have gear on site at least another way is if it is a 6 week job worth 60k then on avg probaly 10k a week but as has been said make your you are getting your moneys worth,I invoice monthly on larger jobs based on what has been spent that month.

yvonne13_2

Be careful and don't fall for the £xxx pounds a day job or you will be bleed dry.

Ask them for the full price plus vat on the completed job and I would go with what reply # 2 said and hopefully you shouldn't go wrong.