Father asking for money for a favour done

onlyroz

While I think it's off that this has been sprung on you, a typical painter will charge about £100 a day for their labour.

Pollycat

Ryiah wrote: »

Hi,
My husband and I had an extension built, my dad who is a painter and decorator offered to paint it for us. No mention of money was ever discussed, so we assumed he we doing it as a favour. Now he has handed us a list of all the hours he did and the payment expected - which he said was a heavily reduced rate he normally charges. We always intended giving him some money for his time and travel, as he was here a lot, but no where near as muchas he's asking! We also let him stay and paid for his meals etc during his time decorating.

What annoys us most is that if he said he'd be charging us from the start, we would've done most of it ourselves, but he kept insisting it would take us too long and he'd be quicker! We arent even that happy with the standard of work he has done - wallpaper not lined up right, edges not cut in well, patches on the ceiling where he ran out of paint and used a different type - but we just let those slide as we thought he was doing us a favour! Had we been paying another decorator we would've been right on their back.

Not only that he never listened to what we wanted, we wanted the finished rooms done first so we could move in to them, but he'd take it on himself to do the other rooms - the joiners werent even finished in those rooms yet, so they then made a mess and the rooms had to be repainted!

Also a lot of the time he wasnt solidly working as he'd chat for ages with us, have long lunches, play with the kids, yet he still has a full working day down on his hour list.

We're really not happy and we have told him we didnt agree or expect him to bill us. But he said it took up a lot of his time - which we agree it did, but that couldve been prevented had we known he was going to bill us! We had planned on using the money to get our utility room installed - which we wont be able to do for a few months while we save up more!

What should we do? Pay up and grin and bear it or pay what we had always intended to pay (less than half the amount asked for).

Thanks!

Reading through the highlighted bits, he's taking the pee.

This was in no way a formal agreement as you would have had with a painter & decorator you had chosen to do the work.

I would be pretty unhappy about being billed for substandard work and for time not spent working.

As other posters have asked - what sort of relationship do you & your OH have with him?
Is this likely to become pretty nasty if you query the bill?
And if it is, are you prepared to stick to your guns and offer to pay what you originally planned to?

Marvel1

Ryiah wrote: »

What annoys us most is that if he said he'd be charging us from the start, we would've done most of it ourselves, but he kept insisting it would take us too long and he'd be quicker!

This is what makes it even worse, he was insisting but did not mention the real reason!

Lily-Rose_3

Awful situation, and I really have no answer, except you need to sit him down and speak to him. Tell him that he didn't tell you you had to pay him, therefore, you're not going to on this occasion. How bizarre.

Puts me in mind of someone I know whose grandson did some painting in her house, and tidied the garden a bit, and then gave her a scribbled invoice for £100 for doing it. Cheeky little monkey. He had never mentioned it beforehand!

ERICS_MUM

chesky wrote: »

....
Perhaps you should make a charge for dinner and board. And what's that list called, where you write everything down that isn't completely satisfactory about the work and needs to be fixed.

A snagging list

[Deleted User]

Look up local B&B.

Deduct the rate per night that he stayed.

Charge him 5.00 per day for lunch.

Charge him 15.00 per day for dinner.

Deduct time from him for hours he charged but clearly didn't work.

He might end up owing you some money ;-)

Dxxx

Tigsteroonie

"I'm sorry Dad, we hadn't banked on paying you this much as we thought you were doing us a favour. In fact, we would have painted XYZ rooms ourselves but you insisted on helping. We do appreciate your help, but we've only budgeted £yy for this. Here it is, and I'm sorry that we cannot afford more."

paddy's_mum

Have you got a Mum or Aunty about that can talk to him, off the record and no bones broken, as it were?

In your shoes, I probably would pay him simply to avoid WWlll breaking out but whichever way you go, his behaviour is going to have knock-on effects in his relationship with you, and with your husband and family. That is always a foolish, short-sighted thing to do.

I sympathise with your sense of shock and upset and hope this little to-do can be dealt with swiftly and kindly. Good luck.

ska_lover

I would pay what I could afford and never take him up on an offer of help again. Live and learn

Ryiah

Thanks everyone for your replies. They were all very helpful.

In answer to some questions - He was doing the painting evenings and weekends for about a month. He finished painting Feb last year (although the job is not yet finished!). When he finished, he asked us if we were paying him or not, we said we hadn't intended to but we'll give something. We never gave anything yet as we were having money issues, but still intend to. So, my dad then got earshot recently (through the in laws!) that we were getting our utility room installed - now he has handed me his list of hours and said he wants payment.
I do feel like just paying as then we won't have the guilt hanging over us everytime we want something done to the house, but I don't trust his hours as I prev mentioned he didn't work solidly for 8 hours at the weekends. But we have no way of knowing how much work he actually did to as we weren't keeping track at the time as we didn't know we were being charged, otherwise I would've been noting every minute lol!

I don't expect him to work for nothing but think it's incredibly cheeky the way he's done it. Our relationship took a downslide after he asked for payment last year. We haven't seen him for months, then we go last night and he drops it on us again! I'm really stressed by it all as he's not a reasonable person! I really don't think he'll accept less because he already said he's knocked more than half off his hourly rate!