Electrician's Invoice: can he charge VAT on marked up material?

MissUngercover

Hi All,

i've been rather naive and got an electrician in to do some 'minor works' without asking for a quote. The invoice I've just received is just over £600 and quite frankly I thought it'd be half. He's now going to provide an itemized invoice but I thought I'd ask you all for advice.

What he did:
- installed extractor fan in new cloakroom (however, hole was already in the wall and he didn't have to do any plastering and such)
- installed a light in said cloakroom (lamp provided by me)
- fixed the kitchen extractor with new electricity and put outlet in shelving unit
- tidied up cables in kitchen
- moved light switch
- installed new double plug in airing cupboard
What he's charging:
- £150 material cost
- £350 labour
- £100 VAT

On the materials he'd presumably have paid VAT which I pay when buying the material off him, but can he charge me VAT on the whole amount of £500?

Sorry to be a bit daft here.
Thanks for any advice - it's my first house.

kev.s

any tradesman vat registered will charge the same.

bit silly not obtaining quote first though..

MissUngercover

Yes, very silly. Agreed. But it was part of larger building works going on and I just really needed to get it done...

casper_g

If he's VAT-registered he has to charge you VAT on the full amount.

In terms of whether the amount for labour is reasonable, it's hard to assess based on the description given. Just tidying up wires in the kitchen could be £350's worth of labour depending on how many wires there were, how much of a mess they were in and how tidy you wanted them!

I recently paid £80 for a light switch to be moved to the other side of a doorway, including chasing the wire into the wall but excluding making good as the room was being skimmed afterwards, so with that in mind £350 for the list you gave didn't seem off-the-scale ridiculous.

MissUngercover

Thanks much! That really does help!

maninthestreet

What is 'new electricity' ??

MissUngercover

when I bought the house the kitchen extractor was on a extension lead, which apparently isn't the way it's supposed to be. So he connected it to the main ring (I guess) - sorry I'm rubbish with all these words

Annie1960

Let me just clarify the VAT issue. You are not paying VAT twice.

If he is VAT registered, he will give his VAT number to his supplier, so he will not have paid VAT on the materials. He is legally obliged to collect VAT on behalf of the govt. which he does by adding this to your bill.

You only pay one lot of VAT.

SuzieSue

Annie1960 wrote: »

Let me just clarify the VAT issue. You are not paying VAT twice.

If he is VAT registered, he will give his VAT number to his supplier, so he will not have paid VAT on the materials. He is legally obliged to collect VAT on behalf of the govt. which he does by adding this to your bill.

You only pay one lot of VAT.

This isn't totally accurate - he does not have to give his VAT number to the supplier unless the supplier is based in another EU country and not in the UK.

His UK supplier will charge him VAT but the electrician will be able to reclaim that VAT from the government when he does his VAT return.

The electrician will then charge the OP VAT on the net value of the goods and he will pay this VAT over to the government, again when he does his VAT return.

Doozergirl

Annie1960 wrote: »

Let me just clarify the VAT issue. You are not paying VAT twice.

If he is VAT registered, he will give his VAT number to his supplier, so he will not have paid VAT on the materials. He is legally obliged to collect VAT on behalf of the govt. which he does by adding this to your bill.

You only pay one lot of VAT.

You're right that she isn't paying VAT twice but the middle bit is wrong? All tradespeople pay VAT on materials here. They just pay HMRC the difference between the VAT they've already paid out in the course of carrying out their work and VAT charged to clients in any VAT period.

OP, he is entitled to charge a mark up and the breakdown is correct in terms of VAT added to what he is charging. I'm not sure what you'll ultimately gain from this other than the knowledge to ask for a price in future.

Dannytyler

how long was he on site?