Money Moral Dilemma: Should I keep the money my plumber would have made from selling my old taps?

meknowalot-51

akwexavante said:

meknowalot-51 said:

akwexavante said:

meknowalot-51 said:

When pricing up the job he took into account the potential value of the scrap and deducted it from his quote.

This never happens!  If scrap has no value then disposal has a cost to the customer for disposal (The customer either pays the trades person to dispose of the waste or disposes of it in some other way themselves).

If the scrap has a value then a trades' person will often just take it away free and disposes of it at a scrap merchant or sells it in some other way as a perk.  One of few advantages of being self-employed.

A plumber does not know how much scrap metal will be leftover after a job and therefore cannot value it before he/she starts a job.  Scrap metal value goes up and down in value daily, today it might be worth a tenner, tomorrow you might be lucky enough to get a pound!

To the plumber any scrap metal leftover is a perk with which he might treat the wife and or kids out to a Sunday lunch or a holiday at the end of the year.

To say,"this never happens" is not correct,as this situation happened to us in 2018 when our kitchen was partly renovated.Unlike the situation we're all discusing here that involves bathroom taps,ours was the old fitted cooker and some kitchen cupboards.When we recieved his quote,which was the cheapest by far of three,it stated clearly that they,"Remove all waste".I said to him that we will take the old cooker as a friend of the wife wants it and he said,"you can't take that as it's re-sale value is included in the quote".If we would have taken it the quote would have been £150 more.So in effect he was paying us £150 for a cooker that we were going to give away and taking that into account he was still cheaper than the other two quotes.So you see,this does happen and those old bathroom taps clearly had a value to the plumber and the lady who purchased them.

He had already promised the wife a new cooker or had a buyer for it already, and was in trouble and said what he said in the hope you'd let him have it rather than pay up an extra £150.

Did you pay him £150 extra or did you let him have it?

We let him have the old cooker and paid the bill of £350,if we took the old cooker and gave it away to the wifes friend we would have had to give him an extra £150,he said with all the work involved,disposal and time,the bill would have been £500.The other two qotes we're both more and they also wanted the old cooker as it said in there quotes the same as his,"remove all waste".I didn't think that the old cooker would be classed as waste,perhaps they should word things differently,live and learn.As for the wifes friend,she understood when we explained why she couldn't have the old cooker.So you see,this does happen,it was all a missunderstanding on my part for assuming the old cooker was not included.

      Our driveway's being resurfaced next year and we're going to make sure on all the details before excepting,every detail.

Yogibear

Tell the plumber to take a leak......

peeza

There are a number of points that this question doesn't address. If the plumber is vat registered , you paid vat and he is selling goods at your address to avoid tax and vat rules. I can only assume this is not the plumbers first time. I had a heater and three rads fitted and received £132 when I took the old heater ,pipes  to the scrap yard.

Pedalman

How can the taps belong to the plumber ?  The taps were part of the house that the house holder owns, so the house holder owns the taps UNLESS it was agreed that the plumber can take them.
Some years ago I  had some old aluminium double glazed windows replaced , I took the aluminium to the scrap yard and got quite a bit of money for it .....the old window frames didn't  belong to the window fitter and I hadn't arranged that they could have the old windows.

Andrews002

1 - you shouldn't share it with him - you should give it all to him.     If you thought the plumber was just going to remove the taps for you and you hadn't discussed selling them, then well done him for taking the initiative to sell them.
2 - you could ask him what he intended to do with the money and do whatever he suggests

alfiepotter

From what I can syphon from this flush of comments you shouldn’t really faucet.  Plug into the festivities and don’t let this drain your tank of merriment. He shouldn’t sink to this sort of behaviour but if you pipe your energy into forgiveness I’m sure he’ll shower you with apologies.  Share the money and splash out for Christmas

sharmoor

The taps belong to you, so keep the money, unless you agreed otherwise with the plumber. Also, why did he give your address for collection, should have asked your permission???

crmism

Unless your plumber had paid for the taps, you're free to do what you want with them; after all, they are still your property and you've presumably paid him for the work done and materials used and nothing more.