Handling fee

Panash

My builder bought 1 Ton of boulders from a gardening supplier for my garden. When they arrived they were too large and too many so we wanted to keep 15 boulders and return the rest. The boulders have only been moved from Drive to garden by wheelbarrow then placed in the original crate so in effect not used at all. The cost was £690. To return remaining boulders the supplier is charging a handling fee if 40% and no cap so £276 which to me seems unfair just for taking back a product. On top of that there will be a collection fee of £60 and cost of the 15 boulders I am keeping for which he will charge upto £200. So I may end up paying £535 for these boulders when I paid £690 for them all. Seems very unfair !! Please advise on what I should do ? Thank you all

Aylesbury_Duck

Your builder bought them, so it's a B2B contract and therefore handling fees, etc. are probably entirely lawful.  Perceived unfairness doesn't come into it.

Your dispute is with your builder.  You'll need to work with him to come up with an outcome.  He won't want to be out of pocket.  Who chose the size and quantity?  You, or your builder?

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Hello OP

If the builder is paying the gardening supplier and then you are paying the builder as above your contract for supply is with the builder and right of cancellation will depend upon the contract type which depends upon how it was formed.

From a more objective view point, if the builder is simply putting these boulders in the garden then kicking up a fuss probably doesn't matter but if this is part of a bigger job costing you thousands it's probably not wise to upset the apple cart over £500 of stone. 

Also to my mind a single boulder would weigh more than a tonne so I assume these are rocks, if they are too large can they not be broken down?  

tightauldgit

Who actually ordered the items? if it was the builder then as A_D says it's a B2B contract and consumer rights don't apply. 

From what you've said surely the 40% should only be applied to the returned boulders not the ones you kept though? 

Other than that you'll probably have to discuss with your builder who foots the bill

Panash

Thank you very much for your thoughts and comments. It seems very likely what I suspected was that as the Builder did order the stones it is a B2B contract and I don't have a leg to stand on unless I want to argue with the builder who ordered the stones in good faith. The supplier is in their rights to charge what they want but  it does leave a very unsavoury taste and seems unreasonable to me even though it is within their rights. Do I take £200 and allow the supplier to make £1200 on stones at my expense by reselling them, or do I keep them and not give them the benefit of making even more money from the stones at my expense?

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Panash said:

Thank you very much for your thoughts and comments. It seems very likely what I suspected was that as the Builder did order the stones it is a B2B contract and I don't have a leg to stand on unless I want to argue with the builder who ordered the stones in good faith. The supplier is in their rights to charge what they want but  it does leave a very unsavoury taste and seems unreasonable to me even though it is within their rights. Do I take £200 and allow the supplier to make £1200 on stones at my expense by reselling them, or do I keep them and not give them the benefit of making even more money from the stones at my expense?

It's always best to be objective OP  

If you have a large garden a tonne of stone left piled up somewhere might not be an issue (and would make a great home for lots insects and other animals) but in some sized gardens it might not be suited depending upon preference so £200 might be better than a burden.

If it were me I'd keep the stone and hope to make use of it at some point in the future  

RefluentBeans

@panash - if the stones are yours, can you not resell them locally? Or donate them to a community project? 

TELLIT01

If there was only 1 tonne of stone, and the OP wants to retain 15 rocks,  I wonder just how large/small the rocks are.  I suspect there has been a misunderstanding between the OP and the builder regarding the quantity required.

tightauldgit

Panash said:

Thank you very much for your thoughts and comments. It seems very likely what I suspected was that as the Builder did order the stones it is a B2B contract and I don't have a leg to stand on unless I want to argue with the builder who ordered the stones in good faith. The supplier is in their rights to charge what they want but  it does leave a very unsavoury taste and seems unreasonable to me even though it is within their rights. Do I take £200 and allow the supplier to make £1200 on stones at my expense by reselling them, or do I keep them and not give them the benefit of making even more money from the stones at my expense?

I'm not quite sure where you got the £1200 at your expense line from so I feel like you might be blowing this out of proportion a bit. How many of the stones are you returning v keeping? If it's really just £200 out of £700 that's a lot to be returning and if you are returning such a significant proportion it kind of makes me wonder how you came up with the original quantity. 

From the suppliers point of view can you see why they might be a bit annoyed with customers ordering significant amounts of their stock and then deciding they actually only want less than 30% of what they asked for and would like to just hand back the rest?

40% seems high yes but I've no idea what costs are involved in the boulder trade. I would imagine it's a pain in the neck to deal with returns and if every customer was returning 70% of their order it would create quite the issue - hence the fees are probably set to deter people from over-ordering. 

Look at it another way - you are getting the rocks you needed for your garden for £200 + 40% of £490 + £60 = £456 rather than £690 so you're saving nearly £250 on what you had planned to spend!

I imagine the last thing you need in your life is a stockpile of boulders and the hassle of having to get rid of them for the benefit of spiting a boulder seller.  

 

tightauldgit

TELLIT01 said:

If there was only 1 tonne of stone, and the OP wants to retain 15 rocks,  I wonder just how large/small the rocks are.  I suspect there has been a misunderstanding between the OP and the builder regarding the quantity required.

OP didn't say exactly by going by the numbers quoted it looks like they are returning over 70% of the stones ordered. So about 50 stones total of 20kg each. That does seem like quite the overestimate - possibly a 1 tonne minimum order quantity but who knows? 

Aylesbury_Duck

tightauldgit said:

Panash said:

Thank you very much for your thoughts and comments. It seems very likely what I suspected was that as the Builder did order the stones it is a B2B contract and I don't have a leg to stand on unless I want to argue with the builder who ordered the stones in good faith. The supplier is in their rights to charge what they want but  it does leave a very unsavoury taste and seems unreasonable to me even though it is within their rights. Do I take £200 and allow the supplier to make £1200 on stones at my expense by reselling them, or do I keep them and not give them the benefit of making even more money from the stones at my expense?

I imagine the last thing you need in your life is a stockpile of boulders and the hassle of having to get rid of them for the benefit of spiting a boulder seller.  

 

Precisely the point I was about to make.  

Panash, I don't think you have any grounds to have an unsavoury taste or feel hard-done by by the supplier.  It's your builder that's put you in this situation.  Equally, it should be of no concern whether or not the supplier profits from your builder's mistake.  What matters is getting a reasonable outcome for yourself, given the circumstances.  Do you want a stockpile of excess stones, or do you want some money back for what you don't need?

If what you want is a full refund for the excess stones, then you need to ask that of your builder friend.