Father asking for money for a favour done

Ryiah

I forgot to add, he painted the house for us when we moved in 10 yrs ago and he never ever asked anything for it, which is why we thought he'd do the same for the extension - especially when he offered. I guess his thinking is, if we can afford an extension we can afford to pay him!

pollypenny

Some father! I'd negotiate it down and never let him do a job again.


A family member quoted £250 for a simple change of DD's bathroom suite. He said it would take him two days, at weekend. It took him one. OH had to run him around to get stuff he needed, then he put the hot and cold taps on the wrong way on the bath.

He still expected £250. DD paid him £180 and they no longer talk.

Ryiah

Tigsteroonie wrote: »

"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."

I like this a lot! I'm no good at confrontation! Thanks!

missbiggles1

Ryiah wrote: »

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!

I think it's also incredibly cheeky to say you'll pay something, make somebody wait for 18 months and then start new work before having paid for the first job!

silvercar

Sounds like he is upset that you are doing a utility room before paying him what you said you would.

You need to tell him that his bill was a shock and ask him to remove the times when he was playing with his grandchildren and eating not working.

Also tell him you don't expect to be charged for work that needed re doing.

At the end of the day he isn't going to take you to court, so he will have to accept what you give him. Of course that doesn't make the relationship easy going forward.

AylesburyDuck

Ryiah wrote: »

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!

Yup, just pay him and move on.
Did you supply paint and materials or did he? If he did you'd have presumably got discount off those as well.
Knotch it up as a learning curve that favours dont come cheap from your Dad.
And FWIW it was a wee bit cheeky knowing he wanted his money let wanting to plan money going elsewhere first.

System

ska_lover wrote: »

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

This in a nutshell.

"Sorry Dad we cant afford to give you this much but we had planned on giving you £*** which is what we can afford. Maybe we should have talked about payment beforehand".

Tigsteroonie

missbiggles1 wrote: »

I think it's also incredibly cheeky to say you'll pay something, make somebody wait for 18 months and then start new work before having paid for the first job!

silvercar wrote: »

Sounds like he is upset that you are doing a utility room before paying him what you said you would.

These ^^ You'd have got away with paying less if you'd said what I suggested last year when the issue first came up. Now you've paid him nothing for a year, and have snubbed him by spending that money on something else. It really doesn't look good, and I can understand why the relationship is going downhill. Sorry. I think you need to scrape together what you can, and get that to him smartish.

System

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.

Why didnt you pay him before having the utility room installed? To be honest i'd be a bit miffed too.

[Deleted User]

Deduct the cost of the meals, pay him, then remind him who's picking his retirement home for him.

I wouldn't let him in the house again though!