Plumber not replied for 7 weeks now wants payment.

mallen

Aylesbury_Duck said:

mallen said:

km1500 said:

if it's for me I would charge your 12 hours at £10 an hour plus materials so deduct £120 plus materials from his invoice 

£10 ph? Could earn more than that stacking shelves Considering he is charging me around £35 ph I will be billing him similar. 

That's unrealistic, you (should have been) paying for his time AND expertise.  You've spent the former, but not the latter.  You need to be sensible, or risk not getting the right result.

Considering that £ph is less than my own salary I do not believe it to be unrealistic. I have taken time from my working day and used my weekend whereas I could had been seeing family and spending time with my kids to put wrong his errors. 

I will also be under pressure playing catch up in my day to day job as result of this for a day or so. 

Undervalued

mallen said:

km1500 said:

if it's for me I would charge your 12 hours at £10 an hour plus materials so deduct £120 plus materials from his invoice 

£10 ph? Could earn more than that stacking shelves Considering he is charging me around £35 ph I will be billing him similar. 

Rightly or wrongly, if this goes to court, you would be very unlikely to be awarded that much.

Had you got another reputable company to repair the problem you could almost certainty have deducted their charges (assuming they were fair and reasonable) from the original plumber's bill. Certainly, if you got two similar quotes and warned the first plumber that was your intention if he did not fix the problem in a reasonable time.

However, having done it yourself a court would most likely only award the cost of materials and a fairly nominal hourly rate.

No disrespect, but would it have taken a skilled tradesman 12 hours? Do you have any expert evidence of the actual problem and what was necessary to fix it? Was far more done than was needed? These are to sort of objections that will be raised if the matter was contested.

Aylesbury_Duck

mallen said:

Aylesbury_Duck said:

mallen said:

km1500 said:

if it's for me I would charge your 12 hours at £10 an hour plus materials so deduct £120 plus materials from his invoice 

£10 ph? Could earn more than that stacking shelves Considering he is charging me around £35 ph I will be billing him similar. 

That's unrealistic, you (should have been) paying for his time AND expertise.  You've spent the former, but not the latter.  You need to be sensible, or risk not getting the right result.

Considering that £ph is less than my own salary I do not believe it to be unrealistic. I have taken time from my working day and used my weekend whereas I could had been seeing family and spending time with my kids to put wrong his errors. 

I will also be under pressure playing catch up in my day to day job as result of this for a day or so. 

So when you said you needed some advice, what you really meant was that you've decided what you're going to do, anyway.

Good luck.

MattMattMattUK

mallen said:

Aylesbury_Duck said:

mallen said:

km1500 said:

if it's for me I would charge your 12 hours at £10 an hour plus materials so deduct £120 plus materials from his invoice 

£10 ph? Could earn more than that stacking shelves Considering he is charging me around £35 ph I will be billing him similar. 

That's unrealistic, you (should have been) paying for his time AND expertise.  You've spent the former, but not the latter.  You need to be sensible, or risk not getting the right result.

Considering that £ph is less than my own salary I do not believe it to be unrealistic. 

It is unrealistic as that is not how it works, at times my nominal hourly rate has been in the £70-80 range, that does not make it deductible against cost at that level, or even half that. 

mallen said:
I have taken time from my working day and used my weekend whereas I could had been seeing family and spending time with my kids to put wrong his errors. 

I will also be under pressure playing catch up in my day to day job as result of this for a day or so. 

Those were your choice, but your time management issues are not relevant legally. Do you want people to give you advice so that you do not end up in court/losing in court, or do you want people to blindly agree with you? You can have one, not both.

littleboo

mallen said:

km1500 said:

if it's for me I would charge your 12 hours at £10 an hour plus materials so deduct £120 plus materials from his invoice 

£10 ph? Could earn more than that stacking shelves Considering he is charging me around £35 ph I will be billing him similar. 

The tradesman has costs which you don’t, and is also making a profit, you can’t profit from the work

tightauldgit

mallen said:

km1500 said:

if it's for me I would charge your 12 hours at £10 an hour plus materials so deduct £120 plus materials from his invoice 

£10 ph? Could earn more than that stacking shelves Considering he is charging me around £35 ph I will be billing him similar. 

Yeah sorry when I said you still need to pay him for the work completed I meant the portion of the work that you are happy with and that was done properly.

I would think twice about charging him the same hourly rate as he charges you - you are now claiming that your time doing plumbing work is as valuable as a trained and experienced plumber and that is obviously not true. If it took you 12 hours to fix then what are the chances a trained plumber could have done it in 3? 

You're getting into taking the P territory if you seriously plan to charge over £400 for your time and that will only backfire on you. £10-15 per hour is more sensible. What you earn elsewhere is irrelevant unless you can show that you gave up those earnings to do this work and had no choice but to do so.

mallen

Thanks all, I will adjust my hourly rate the fit your recommendations. Advice taken 

tightauldgit

mallen said:

Thanks all, I will adjust my hourly rate the fit your recommendations. Advice taken 

At the end of the day you need to come up with a number that looks sensible in context - if a plumber could have done the job for £100 and you're saying it cost you £500 then it's not going to fly. If your number is less than a plumber would have charged for the same work then that's more reasonable and sensible.

As I said, best case would have been getting a pro to quote to fix the work. As no doubt if it did go to court your man is going to say 'the problem was just X Y and Z and I could have fixed it in half an hour with sellotape and two drinking straws. wouldn't have cost more than £25 to fix'  

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

It's worth a note on this topic in general that a price reduction is considering more than simple loss (simple loss would be referred to as damages), it is considering the value of service when taking in account all terms of the service, which include reasonable skill and care plus anything that trader said. 

As an example if you hire a plasterer and they do a poor job but the work isn't necessarily required to be done again the consumer may still seek a price reduction due a lack of care and skill.

I'm not suggesting the OP may claim £35 a hour, simply because they are entitled to suggest the job itself wasn't worth £35 a hour. 

Aylesbury_Duck said:

That's unrealistic, you (should have been) paying for his time AND expertise.  You've spent the former, but not the latter.  You need to be sensible, or risk not getting the right result.

This is the point exactly, the OP was billed for their expertise and effectively didn't receive it which is a consideration for the value of a price reduction.   

mallen

Because I haven’t received the plumbers expertise am I barking up the wrong tree in expecting the £100 discount to remain before subtracting my costs?