Dealings with Are You Owed Money ltd

tslambert1973

Hi,

Hope someone can offer advice.

We are in dispute with a builder who we believe is overcharging for work he did for us.

Without going into too much detail – he quoted for a job (inc materials too on quote) and then we proceed to go ahead. We need to expand the project by a bit more and he said dont worry it'll cost a little more in materials and not much in labour. Invoice arrives and is more than double original quote. We have explained our view and he has explained his and came to a stalemate. Have paid what we think it should be and offered a little more but he's not playing ball and has contracted AYOM to collect the 'debt' as he sees it. If it needs to go to small claims court or court mediation we are thinking so be it as believe our case is strong. He wants another £500 on top of this and we don't think that's correct or fair. We are worried however that if we lose in court that we will not only have to pay what the courts think is correct but also his costs of using AYOM and any legal services he procures from them or anybody else.

Also AYOM have now put their haranguing us via phone and email on hold whilst their legal team look into it and have mentioned that they could mediate. I'm loathe  to have them mediate as they are his client and have a vested interest in pleasing him and not necessarily achieving an outcome that's satisfactory to all. We just want to pay what is fair with a cost breakdown that makes sense.

So could we be saddled with his costs?

any other advice?

btw, we had to fight quite hard to get a breakdown and receipts for materials from him, had to do this through the online company he advertises through. Many of which we're not receipts and just a web page from a merchant or not clear when materials bought, possibly for other jobs. Also had an arbitrary monetary figure down as 'profit'. Also he never formally requoted when the job expanded.

pinkshoes

In short, yes if you lose you will pay his costs.

I'd start by consulting another couple of builders to say what a fair price for the extra work carried out would be. That way you will have some evidence to say that his extra costs were excessive.

Without any details it's a bit difficult to help. How much was the original quote? What did you think the extra would be and how much is this?

Do you have it in writing where he said about it costing a little more in materials and not much more in labour?

I'd write to him and say you're happy to pay for the extra building work, but as he stated it would be a little more in materials and not much labour, you'd like to see the invoice for all the extra materials plus how many extra hours this was. 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Hello OP

Sorry to hear, if you paid £50k for an extension and the guy now wants £100k that's a lot different to paying £1k for small job and it turning into £2k. 

Can you give us some figures and some details of the original work and the extra work?

In terms of receipts, etc, you should be told before a contract is formed the cost or how it is to be calculated. So a builder should either say £x for the job or maybe £x for materials and £x per hour for labour probably with an estimate of hours.

When you asked for the contract to be amended you should have again been given the price as above. 

It sounds like this dispute has boiled down to a disagreement over £500?

AYOM can't really do anything, block their emails and, if you can, their calls should you wish. It's for the builder to take you to court and to do so he should sent a letter in the post stating the situation with a timeframe for payment before filing and then you'd receive court papers. 

In terms of AYOM mediating, on the one hand being reasonable is going to look favourable on your part, on the other the court process has it's own mediation process.  

For £500 I'd be tempted to say split the difference a £250 and both go separate ways but that really depends on the answers to the questions about the job and it's cost. 

fatbelly

If this is likely to be a claim for under 10k then in general each side bears its own costs.

However he is allowed to reclaim the court fees and limited costs if for example an expert witness is needed. The final decision on these is made by the judge at the hearing

https://england.shelter.org.uk/professional_resources/legal/court_action_and_complaints/costs_of_legal_action/legal_costs_in_small_claims_track_fast_track_and_multi_track#title-0

tslambert1973

Hi,

Original quote was for £1250. Stated inclusive of all materials ( although we were providing some ourselves). No breakdown but we'd used builder before and happy with work so proceeded.

We have all comms on email and WhatsApp. He didnt re-quote for extra but said (over several whatsapps) that dont worry it won't cost more just a bit for materials and a days Labour. It was for a drive and the extra bit was another quarter of the original width. Invoice came in at £2500 with no breakdown. Asked for breakdown and just received figures that we didnt agree with so asked for clarification. Had to go through checkatrade to force him to give us receipts for materials and an invoice breakdown. He said many of materials came from his yard and didn't have receipts. Some receipts made sense some were not receipts but a link to a material on a website indicating thats what was bought. 

We made a calculation ourselves and offered that as payment inc. of extra work. He didn't accept but we transferred to him so he has been paid a proportion of invoice. Offered another £200ish on top - not accepted by him. Have presented everything in a complaint to checkatrade, they say they accept our view and apparently will be accepting our negative review on their site (we'll see).

We start receiving letters from AYOM. We have contacted stating our case and thats where we're at for now. We have been reasonable, courteous and transparent in our dealings with him, checkatrade and AYOM and insist we want a resolution acceptable to all so certainly not a case of 'well take us to court then'. He's been a mixture of passive-aggressive, sometimes reasonable, sometimes hard to deal with and outraged and unprofessional. 

We want this sorted but worried that we could end up paying his costs for AYOM and any legal rep. he takes up. 

Oh and AYOM's first letter was a bill to us for £1200 - the remainder on the invoice (£700ish) plus their costs - I don't see why we should pay them of course but again concerned we may have to.

HillStreetBlues

Just to break this down your were quoted £1250 and decided you wanted 25% extra added. For that 25% you were charged £1250.
You have paid the £1250 & £550 for the extra 25%
And it was a quote rather than an estimate?

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

tslambert1973 said:

 the remainder on the invoice (£700ish) plus their costs - I don't see why we should pay them of course but again concerned we may have to.

Thanks OP

With regards to their costs I would hope a court would view spending £500 to chase an amount of £700 to be unreasonable. 

You do not have a contract with AYOM so don't owe them anything, if the original contract with the builder included some reasonable costs for late payment (perhaps £10 to send a payment reminder) perhaps that would be enforceable but I don't see the builder is going to be awarded this £500 fee, I'm not a lawyer but it seems crazy to me. I would be tempted to advise both the builder and AYOM you have no contract with AYOM and don't wish to deal with AYOM any further but are happy to present your case in small claims if the builder wishes to recover the £700 via that avenue. 

Regular go to on this is this thread:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5996209/debt-collector-fees

2nd post down from @sourcrates.

With regards to the rest, out of interest how did you agree the contract please? I guess he came out to look at the job, did you agree there and then or did he leave and you agreed later (either by saying yes please go ahead by text, etc or by him sending a price later and you agreeing)? The answer would determine what kind of contract you have and how information should be provided. 

tslambert1973

HillStreetBlues said:

Just to break this down your were quoted £1250 and decided you wanted 25% extra added. For that 25% you were charged £1250.
You have paid the £1250 & £550 for the extra 25%
And it was a quote rather than an estimate?

I think was an estimate and not a quote so I guess that changes things.

tslambert1973

With regards to the rest, out of interest how did you agree the contract please? I guess he came out to look at the job, did you agree there and then or did he leave and you agreed later (either by saying yes please go ahead by text, etc or by him sending a price later and you agreeing)? The answer would determine what kind of contract you have and how information should be provided. 

Yes he came around, saw what had already been done and what he'd need to do. Provided estimate in email and we said yes go ahead and came up with a start date. He ended up starting job 2 weeks sooner with a days notice (we hadn't chance to get all materials by then). He didn't come around to re-estimate on extra work just said dont worry if only a bit extra just be a days labour and bit extra for materials.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

tslambert1973 said:

With regards to the rest, out of interest how did you agree the contract please? I guess he came out to look at the job, did you agree there and then or did he leave and you agreed later (either by saying yes please go ahead by text, etc or by him sending a price later and you agreeing)? The answer would determine what kind of contract you have and how information should be provided. 

Yes he came around, saw what had already been done and what he'd need to do. Provided estimate in email and we said yes go ahead and came up with a start date. He ended up starting job 2 weeks sooner with a days notice (we hadn't chance to get all materials by then). He didn't come around to re-estimate on extra work just said dont worry if only a bit extra just be a days labour and bit extra for materials.

Thanks OP, that makes it an on-premises contract and sadly information given doesn't have to be durable (i.e written down in a way you can keep but could be verbal). 

The Consumer Rights Act stipulates:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/section/51

Reasonable price to be paid for a service

(1)This section applies to a contract to supply a service if—

(a)the consumer has not paid a price or other consideration for the service,

(b)the contract does not expressly fix a price or other consideration, and does not say how it is to be fixed, and

(c)anything that is to be treated under section 50 as included in the contract does not fix a price or other consideration either.

(2)In that case the contract is to be treated as including a term that the consumer must pay a reasonable price for the service, and no more.

(3)What is a reasonable price is a question of fact.

You would have to argue as the extra work wasn't priced the £1250 for it is unreasonable.

The builder may either argue it is reasonable or state they told you the price verbally. 

I think it would be a tricky situation and I don't know which way it would go, ideally you'd hope the builder gives up and goes away. 

You options really are to pay nothing more, pay the extra £200 you mentioned leaving £500 or pick a figure between £200 and £700 to pay, and hope that either way the builder doesn't think it's worth his time to go to court for the difference.

For these kinds of sums the awarding of costs is very limited, there is the filing fee (£70 for £500.01 to £1000 or £50 for £300.01 to £500), I believe there is mediation and then a fee for it to be taken to a hearing (£50 is a figure I've seen mentioned on here). After that I've seen figures of around £90 mentioned for other costs such as travel etc. AFAIK the builder can't claim costs for days off work or similar to attend to process and again I'd hope the £500 for AYOM is simply viewed as excessive and unenforceable.

 

HillStreetBlues

tslambert1973 said:

HillStreetBlues said:

Just to break this down your were quoted £1250 and decided you wanted 25% extra added. For that 25% you were charged £1250.
You have paid the £1250 & £550 for the extra 25%
And it was a quote rather than an estimate?

I think was an estimate and not a quote so I guess that changes things.

Yes it does, estimate can be a rough cost of the job, a quote is a fixed cost.
So the calculation can be different as the £1250 estimate you first had could have risen meaning that it's not simply £1250 for the 25% of extra work.