Paying a builder before final inspection + certs

Doozergirl

Focus on the solution. Taking advice on what is normal from the CAB isn’t the real world and you have no contract to show what is ‘normal’. You’re dealing with an individual here not what is ‘normal’, it’s just two people trying to find a way through. You need to negotiate something where you can both relax a little bit.

Teneighty’s idea is perfect. Speak to the builder, offer half the remainder with the final half payable as soon as certs are in hand - which could be a matter of days.

Then back it up with an email saying that it has been agreed.

How much was the contract for? Are we talking a significant sum here or not?

waldopepper

Doozergirl wrote: »

Focus on the solution. Taking advice on what is normal from the CAB isn’t the real world and you have no contract to show what is ‘normal’. You’re dealing with an individual here not what is ‘normal’, it’s just two people trying to find a way through. You need to negotiate something where you can both relax a little bit.

Teneighty’s idea is perfect. Speak to the builder, offer half the remainder with the final half payable as soon as certs are in hand - which could be a matter of days.

Then back it up with an email saying that it has been agreed.

How much was the contract for? Are we talking a significant sum here or not?

Yup pretty significant, about £90k, £3k is outstanding. That's why I'm posting here really, to get more of a real world view rather than strictly legal one, but making sure we're not doing the wrong thing before agreeing the final payment.

Doozergirl

Yeah, okay. I was wondering if it holds enough value for him. It will do.

Let us know how you get on with the offer

fezster

Is the building inspector private or council? Either way, you should be able to approach the inspector and get verbal confirmation that everything has been completed satisfactorily and that they are only awaiting the certificates to provide a completion certificate of their own.

This will give you some confidence that everything is in order before handing over any more money.

waldopepper

Thanks for the advice all, we are sorted now and have the certs.

The inspector didn't want to do the final inspection until we had the certs to give to him so for now he sent us a letter stating that he was happy with the standard of the work so far and listed a couple of issues with drainage/rodding access that hadn't yet been addressed. These were fixed so we settled up the final amount with the builder knowing that we have in writing that there shouldn't be any surprises during the final inspection.

Doozergirl

Thanks for coming back to let us know. Glad it was all okay.

waldopepper

Hi all, our final buildings inspection has been delayed until some internal work is finished (and someone has now ordered the correct number of tiles!), in the meantime, on the 'Domestic Electrical Certificate' that the builder supplied to us, the two fields 'Registration no:' and 'Branch no:' haven't been filled in, are these important? Someone mentioned to us that the Registration number probably means the Part P registration membership number of the scheme that they are registered to?

I don't want to waste the building inspectors time turning up for the inspection and documents if they're not 100% in order.

Risteard

waldopepper wrote: »

Hi all, our final buildings inspection has been delayed until some internal work is finished (and someone has now ordered the correct number of tiles!), in the meantime, on the 'Domestic Electrical Certificate' that the builder supplied to us, the two fields 'Registration no:' and 'Branch no:' haven't been filled in, are these important? Someone mentioned to us that the Registration number probably means the Part P registration membership number of the scheme that they are registered to?

I don't want to waste the building inspectors time turning up for the inspection and documents if they're not 100% in order.

"Domestic Electrical Installation Certificate" is a version of an Electrical Installation Certificate used by the NICEIC.

If the certificate is red then it can only be issued by an NICEIC Approved Contractor and therefore the Enrolment No. should be filled in. (Branch number may well be "N/A" or "000" unless the contractor has multiple branches.)

If the certificate is purple then it can only be issued by the lesser Domestic Installer registrant.

If the certificate is green then it is open to non-registered contractors and therefore these fields would not need to be filled in (although strictly speaking should be marked "N/A" if they appear on the certificate).

waldopepper

Risteard wrote: »

"Domestic Electrical Installation Certificate" is a version of an Electrical Installation Certificate used by the NICEIC.

If the certificate is red then it can only be issued by an NICEIC Approved Contractor and therefore the Enrolment No. should be filled in. (Branch number may well be "N/A" or "000" unless the contractor has multiple branches.)

If the certificate is purple then it can only be issued by the lesser Domestic Installer registrant.

If the certificate is green then it is open to non-registered contractors and therefore these fields would not need to be filled in (although strictly speaking should be marked "N/A" if they appear on the certificate).

Thanks, our certificate has coloured boxes in each section, I assume this is what you mean by the colours? In that case ours is purple. It mentions elsewhere 'details of departures from BS7671:2008' (none listed), so sounds like the latest edition.

So does it sound like the Registration number doesn't need to be completed in our case? thx

Doozergirl

Doesn't your building inspector have an email address? Send it to them. They prefer it, generally.