Garage door fitting no safety feature

Grofit

I have recently had a new garage door fitted, an automatic roller one as the old one was rubbish and it had been on our todo list for a while.

Anyway after getting quotes together we found a local guy who had good reviews and beat the other quotes by a decent margin. I have double checked over my emails and my specification was the door being automatic with remote control with an automatic safety cutoff. He said he can do a door to "my spec" for a price, then he came to me offering it cheaper if I were to have just the door and install it myself, however I am no good at DIY so we compromised at a lower price for the door with fitting as he already had the parts in stock for the door.

Anyway eventually he comes round and does the job and everything is going well, turns out the garage is not level, the walls are wonky and the frames need to be offset for the door etc and the floor needs to be lowered slightly (but they had some sander style tool which did that). So just as we are discussing the finished job he tells me to watch out if I have children as there is no automatic safety cut off mechanism as this is quite an expensive addition.

Now at this point I quickly went and checked my emails and as mentioned above he clearly agrees in my email chain to do the door at "my spec" and the brochure he sent me for his roller doors CLEARLY say that "Safety brake as standard" and also imply that you get a safety edge detection system with it as there is no mention that this costs extra.

So I go back and mention that this was part of my criteria and we have a bit of a falling out as he says he cannot do it for the price he quoted me, as this is the reason I got a discount. (If it helps context the price was originally £1150 then was discounted to £799 for the parts to fit myself, then £1000 for it fitted). However I was never told that the discount would incur a lesser spec door otherwise I would have gone with another quote. So after me saying diplomatically that I could not accept the door without this mechanism, he mentioned how the job has been a pain and he was not informed of certain problems (I mentioned all problems I was aware of in our email chain and his guy who came out to get measurements etc was supposed to collect this info, so he blames him a bit for this problem, although he could have just refused to do the job when he came on site).

He tried to fit some photo cells to it however it was incompatible with the electric box being used, and then he said he would need to come back some other time and put a new box on and put in the parts I was originally expecting, however he asked if I can pay him half now and the other half once he has fitted the other stuff.

The job itself is great, there are a few dints and things on the door which originally he was going to discount for me and considering how crappy the garage is hes done a great job and is a nice guy. However I am a bit weary about paying anything for an unfinished job, also I was lead to believe when looking around online it is legislation that any automatic door HAS to have a safety cutoff to stop it crushing people, so I was not even sure if it would be legal to accept the door in this condition. He did say there was a deadman mode or something similar where I can put the door into this mode and I would have to hold the button for it to move, however that would require me to open up the electric box on the wall and change a switch which I do not class as an "automatic cutoff".

So is it within my rights to hold off giving any payment until the job has been completed to my agreed spec, or is it fair enough to pay him half now? As I don't want to screw the guy over but at the same time I am the consumer who has been mislead.

Any advice would be great as I know next to nothing about this stuff...

Horseunderwater

Have you paid the chap anything at all? If not then I would suggest offering 10% now & balance on final sign off.

Grofit

Not yet, I have asked for a written invoice however I am not sure if he is going to do it in 2 halves or if he is going to just give me an invoice for it all.

The work he has done is like 85% of the job, so to be fair 50% of the pay is fine with me, I was just not sure if me accepting to pay any % of the work would affect my rights in any way.