Advice needed: excessive fee charged for a repair estimate

olip74

Hi, I need some advice. I'm selling my house (in Scotland) and there is some building work that needs done to the roof. The other side's lawyers insisted that we use a firm stipulated by them to provide a quote for the work, which was £180. I wasn't at all happy with it but we reluctantly consented. My lawyer commissioned the firm.

A van turned up in the street one day and sat for a while but no one was to be seen. Later we got a single sheet of A4 with a single figure on it. There is an pre-existing and freely available schedule of the work required but the report contained no breakdown of labour, materials, scaffold hire, etc. The figure was also very rounded. The report also stated that a 'non-invasive' inspection had been conducted from the ground - it's a flat roof!

The report is not of a standard that I am happy with. I expected a professional report broken down into units of labour and materials and with projections for any fees and VAT so that we could, for example, check it out with our own builder if needs be. Also £180 for a guy to come and park in the street and pluck a figure from his **** doesn't reflect value for money in my book! :mad:

I'm livid but to top it off, the other side's lawyers want to bump up the estimate by 25% as a contingency. To me the quote is heuristic and it could turn out be 25% less for all we know plus we have nothing else to compare it with. We've told them, for expediency, that we'll work with the quote but we're not happy to pay an extra 25%.

My question however is about the fee charged for the estimate. Do I have to pay it if I'm not happy? (Remember my lawyer commissioned it.) How can I seek restitution if I do?

olip74

I should add that the invoice has one line in it for 'Retention estimate report', no breakdown of labour or expenses is provided.

Am I correct in thinking that, in procuring a service, the fee should be a true reflection of the costs? Can anyone specify the act and section(s)?

noh

olip74 wrote: »

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Am I correct in thinking that, in procuring a service, the fee should be a true reflection of the costs? Can anyone specify the act and section(s)?

No not as far as I'm aware.

olip74

Can no one offer any advice? Basically I'm unhappy with the quality of the report and the fee charged does not represent the costs or labour involved. Surely I must have some rights here?

To summarise the points I'm unhappy about:

• The quote itself is a single figure and does not contain a breakdown that corresponds to the items listed in the schedule.
• The quote is a very rounded figure suggesting that a thorough and conscientious breakdown of labour and materials has not been undertaken.
• A visual inspection was not undertaken as the report states a ‘non-invasive’ inspection was performed from ground level (the repair pertains to an area of the roof not visible from ground level).
• The quote makes reference to ‘fees’ and ‘administration fees’ but falls short of itemising what form these might take or the order of expense involved. In addition VAT implications are not quantified.
• The invoice presented alongside the report contains no breakdown of the expenses incurred or labour expended, simply the fee.

To provide an example of what I expected: I had a dent in the car so I took it to the dealer. For no fee I was provided with a detailed multiple page breakdown of the labour, parts and fees, with VAT added. There was a diagram of the car, a list of the parts that would need to be dismantled, replaced and reassembled and each item was fully itemised in units of labour. Alternatively consider that a surveyor will provide a multi-page report on a property and a valuation for around the same fee, based on a visual inspection of the entire house.