No Contract with Builders - Over Budget

Babrat

Hi I am very new to this so please have patience.
We have just had a new kitchen fitted, including lots of building works (walls removed, new flooring, plastering, gas boiler, etc.
This was agreed with a Kitchen Designer. Our contract should have been with him, but we are a little messy with our paperwork and never signed a thing.

We did, in writing say that our budget was £20,000 plus a £2,000 contingency. He arranged supply of all the goods, materials, and appointed builders who, I have to say have been fantastic.

All the work is finished and its superb. However, the designer just submitted a bill and its a wapping £25,000. He says this is the cost of taking down the walls and the additional work that incurred. We say, he had included that in his original plans and therefore it should have been included in the costs.

What do we do now and what are our rights? I am really worried as we do not have the extra money to pay for this.

southcoastrgi

you will find plenty of people on here, that do building work for alot more money than you are paying & they say "i never give my customer a contract" but as you have found out to your cost always get a contract detailing everything so you all know where you stand, don't trust anyone without something in writing because you will now be hard pushed to contest it, it'll be your word against them.

keyfob

If it was all included in the original plan you need to get a detailed break down, from him, showing what the additional charges are for.

If there is additional cost over and above the original quotation, this should have been identified to you before the works were carried out.

Unless this information can be provided and justified, it wouldn't hold up in court.

macman

So what price did he actually quote you? It doesn't matter what your budget and contingency was-did he quote 20/22/25K? Unless additional works were highlighted, quoted and agreed at the time, then you only owe what was agreed. You do have a contract. A verbal contract is still a binding contract, but forgetting to sign it just makes it harder to prove.
It''ll be up to him to pursue the extra via a civil claim if he thinks he has a case.

genuine-tradsman

always use approved tradesman from trading standards then you would have them as back up
i always work on fixed price but do hear about silly prices quoted from other people checkatrade always seems to pop up as the worse
people will not give neg feedback due to fear of reprisals from friends or family of members

Babrat

Thanks people. We said in writing via email what the budget was and what the contingency was. The only time they said there could be additional costs was if there was a structural problem, such as subsidence, not covered in the budget we had allocated. In fact, there was a structural query and I agreed a payment to cover for a structural engineer to come on site and investigate. Nothing else was mentioned AND, on the drawings sent through by the designer who appointed the builder, all the works they are now calling extras were detailed.

macman

We are going round in circles here-you said that you had a contract, but you never bothered to sign it. So what price did the contract specify?
If he gave you an estimate, then that is just that, and the price can go up or down. If he gave you a quote, and you accepted, then that is a fixed price, unless you subsequently agreed extras.
What you budgeted in an email is completely irrelevant unless he agreed that budget and it then formed the basis of your contract.

Babrat

Hi Macman

The contract was with the kitchen designer. He drew up plans and specified all the finishes, sourced them, organised and contracted the builders. The contract had no quote. He had control, like a project manager, of the overall budget, which he knew, before specifying or starting work was £20K + £2K contingency, as per our email. This was the budget he agreed to work to. He organised the lot.

What do you think? Is he trying it on? It seems that way to me.

macman

I can't believe that you commissioned a £25K project without sorting out a firm price. 'Working to a budget' is fairly meaningless. You either agreed a firm price or you did not.
If you did then, what is his justification for the extra £3K?

tartanterra

Babrat wrote: »

Hi Macman

The contract was with the kitchen designer. He drew up plans and specified all the finishes, sourced them, organised and contracted the builders. The contract had no quote. He had control, like a project manager, of the overall budget, which he knew, before specifying or starting work was £20K + £2K contingency, as per our email. This was the budget he agreed to work to. He organised the lot.

What do you think? Is he trying it on? It seems that way to me.

You would have been far better contacting a trusted builder first.

Kitchen designer is just a fancy word for "salesman". I think you would be quite shocked at how small the builders margin would have been.

I suggest that while you are in dispute, do not pay any money whatsoever. He will need to pay the builder and associated trades as well as the supplier. He will need your cash to meet these bills.
It will give you some leverage whilst he "reviews" your bill and justifies the extra cost.

However, your position is somewhat weakened by not getting anything in writing.

Next time, use a reputable, recommended tradesman who will discuss any extra costs as they occur. Middlemen only ramp up costs.

Babrat

He says that the builders quote did not include the removal of two walls, however on his plans the walls were shown as removed. Hindsight is a marvellous thing but we have never undertaken anything like this before.