Help! Tradesman has asked for deposit.

ashli_2

Thanks all!


This is my first house purchase and I have no experience in this kind of thing, I just assumed that you pay at the end.


I am much reassured

greyteam1959

Pay him with a credit card then if he does a runner with your hard earned you will be protected otherwise you could quite easily lose your 'booking' fee

babyangel10

Might be worth a google or two on him to see if he pops up with owt unscrupulous, or if your local newspaper has a website try putting his name in search too.

Sounds a bit 'Miss Marple' but if you can at least find out where they live then you have an idea of whose windows to smash if he runs off with your deposit!

For the record, I have just paid a gardener £750 cash for a £2,500 job and was a bit wary as it was the first time I'd done this too, but I did a few checks as above, and also as he is 'Ltd' I checked on the Companies House website to see if his accounts were up to date too.

So then at least if he did run off I could say that I'd done as many checks as possible! I'd also seen his van around for quite a few years and had that gut feeling that he was kosher (sp).

I have had over £900 of materials delivered today though so all's well so far.....

Having said all that, he isn't starting the job until Monday so he might still do a !!!!!! job!

I think the general consensus is that if they are a small firm they need some money up front for materials in case they buy a load of stuff and then you cancel the job.

Just do a bit of homework and you should be fine.

Good luck!

HugoSP

As I don't work full time I tend to take deposits to buy the materials up front for large jobs.

The main reasons I do this are:

1) To get the customer to carry the cost of the materials
2) To safeguard me against non payment in the event of any dispute or customer cashflow issues. Even the most well meaning of customers can be subject to these, and although I've always been paid I have had to wait up to a month for one small job knowing that the customer is having cash flow problems. If this had been a bigger job I knew I would have at least been able to pay my suppliers' invoices on time.
3) To safeguard against the customer changing their minds and cancelling me. Although I can make redeply the time quite easily as I am also working on my own house, it's the lack of respect that annoys me. Some people seem to think that you can be switched on and off as their whim.

The only problem as I see with taking deposits to book a slot is if the job before overruns. The client IMO would be quite rightly aggrieved at paying up front to have that time slot, and then not gettiing it. Although you could probably protect yourself against such an event in your Ts and Cs, I would still feel uncomfortable with this.

baldelectrician

I always take a deposit of around a third (this usually covers materials).

I take credit cards (chip & pin, customer present usually). If I take a deposit I put things in writing at the time of deposit.

You can get rogue customers (I generally get one every 18 months or so)

I get a lot of word of mouth jobs, and most customers wait.

I give free quotes (either in person or over the phone) and take a deposit if there is a high material cost or a high time factor (over half a day).

To Quote HugoSP
3)... it's the lack of respect that annoys me. Some people seem to think that you can be switched on and off as their whim.

I had a customer call me on a Thursday to ask for the price of a wiring check, wanting it done soon. We agreed a price and a start time of the following Monday (less than 5 days away). I re-arranged other jobs to fit this customer in.
I arrived on the monday and he told me 'he had been called into work and had to go'. This was a lie - he had got someone in on the Friday (during the day) and couldn't be bothered to call me before I stopped at 6pm on Friday.
So just over half a day lost earnings.

People (rightly) give off if a tradesperson fails to show but a few people treat trades like something unpleasant they have stood on.

Rant over

HugoSP

I'll never forget a story a plumber friend of mine told me.

He arranged for some real wood flooring to be laid in his hallway. As he was very busy he found someone through the trade to do the job.

This bloke turned up with the materials and asked his wife for a deposit that he had not agreed with the husband. She paid the deposit in good faith and he left the materials at the house.

When husband got back he found that the cost of the materials did not in any way justify the size of the deposit. The bloke never came back to do the job. He had little incentive as the remaining part of the invoice would have amounted to around £50 per day!

HugoSP

baldelectrician wrote: »

I always take a deposit of around a third (this usually covers materials).

Rant over

That is a general rule of thumb for all the trades. The only difficulty is when the client is supplying some of the materials themselves, then you (the tradesman) would need to base the deposit on the materials you're supplying

never_enough

gertybertyangel wrote: »

Sounds a bit 'Miss Marple' but if you can at least find out where they live then you have an idea of whose windows to smash if he runs off with your deposit!

I like your thinking gertybertyangel!! :rotfl:
My mum did a similar thing when a plumber she'd never used before asked for a big deposit. She called his home number, spoke to his partner & took a cheque around to her straight away. So they were both happy, Mum knew where he lived & he had a cheque the day he asked for it. Needless to say he was an absolute gem & still works for her many years later.

I've never paid someone upfront, even on £20K plus work, however I think I'm probably just lucky. It wouldn't worry me to pay a deposit upfront though, as if I was happy for them to do the work then I'd've checked them out as much as possible in advance.