Unfinished floor

MrsThames

Hi all,

I’m after some advice about how long I should realistically wait for a tradesman to finish a job, and whether I should be concerned about payment requests before completion.

Background:

• Agreed price: £617 to fit 5.5 square meters of parquet LVT

  • £417 paid upfront for materials

  • £200 to be paid on completion

• Quoted timescale to complete job: no more than 1 day

Timeline so far:

• Job started late due to delays with materials.

• Thursday: He laid plywood and screed, then asked for an extra £100 for staff. I politely refused, saying I would prefer to pay when the job was completed.

• Friday: He came back but ran out of flooring (14 pieces short) and 4 door trims. At that point he asked me to pay the remaining £200, and just hold back £20 until trims were done. Again, I politely said I’d prefer to pay once the job was fully finished.

• Saturday: He messaged saying he couldn’t get more flooring until Monday.

• Monday: Said the box of flooring would arrive “within the hour” at the warehouse, but he never turned up.

• Tuesday: Said it would be in before 12, I replied asking him to let me know once he’d collected it so we could arrange a time. Since then, I’ve heard nothing further.

Current situation (2 Sept):

• Job is incomplete.

• Communication has been inconsistent, with repeated delays.

• He has asked for additional/early payments more than once.

My questions are:

• How long should I keep waiting before drawing a line under this?

• Should I continue holding firm on only paying once the job is completed, given he’s already had £417 for materials?

• I have a floor that is almost complete, 14 pieces short3, door trims short and a stair nosing short  

Thanks in advance for any advice, I don’t want to be unfair if he’s genuinely waiting on supplies, but the delays and requests for payment before completion are starting to worry me. 

tacpot12

You should be concerned about payment request before completion, however, this tradesperson is clearly not well capitalised, and may need some money to finish the job. I would be offering the money needed for the 14 missing peices and the door trims - based on the square area left uncompleted you should be able to work out what this should cost. I suspect it is a lot less than £200, seeing as how all the screed will have been laid. 

You have some options:  

• text them to say that if they need money to pay for materials, you can give them an extra £x, where x is the figure you have worked out that it should be costing for materials, but that this is all you will pay until the job is finished. 
• source the materials and finish the job yourself. Laying the screed is the difficult bit, fitting the LVT and trims should be easy, especially if you buy a bit of extra material in case you make a mistake. (You will still owe him the total cost of the job less the extra materials you had to buy). 
• if you have home insurance and have legal expenses insurance as part of this, call the legal helpline for advice. They will be able to advise on how long before you can employ another contractor to finish off the job, if the first contractor won't.

If you want to try to buy the materials yourself, don't delay, in case supplies are running out.  

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Services must be carried out within a reasonable time and where they are not a price reduction is the appropriate remedy. 

If you found someone else to finish the job, deduct their charge from the remaining amount owed off the first fitters invoice and you are in the position you would have had been in had the breach of contract not occurred, which is the correct position. 

A reasonable time is a "matter of fact" so undefined and judged per case so I would perhaps send 1 more communication requesting an update on the situation and, whilst you'd very much like to have the floor finished and pay the full bill, if there isn't a schedule for this that you can rely on note you'll have to find someone else to get it finished off. 

He is either walking away or just not very organised (can be common with trades were they are good at the job but bad at the business aspect), personally IMHO I wouldn't be happy waiting more than a couple of weeks to get it finished.