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oscar21

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Bit of a rant first to explain the situation:-

Effing builders again, I knew there was a reason we hardly ever work for them. We've done a few jobs for one particular builder and we were on strict payment terms with him, basically if he didn't pay what was owed on the Friday then we wouldn't be back in on Monday, and this worked quite well for a while. But it isn't just the money, its his demeanour as well, he speaks like a robot constantly quoting things like due diligence, moving forward etc. Originally he is an office boy and he thought it would be easy doing the jobs he's seen from his office window because after all the thicko tradies will be easy to run rings round right?

Anyway he tried to tie us up in knots again regarding invoices, apparently he priced the job labour only and now wants me to sit down and go though every invoice and itemise price wise what we have supplied, this is going back over about six months worth of invoices. At the end of the day if I had office staff I could allocate the time to do such nonsense as this for a price but I simply haven't got time for stuff like this and all I hear for the 100th+ time is "cant you just help us out this once". This is as well as demanding that we turn up at a moments notice and prioritise him. Anyway my mate had had just that little bit too much hassle off him recently and in no uncertain terms told him to go forth and multiply so to speak.

As the actual customer seemed fine we explained the situation to them and said look if you want the job finishing (its 99% done) then you need to pay the outstanding amount of ÂŁ600, maybe knock it off what you owe the builder and we will come back and put the last few switches on and sign the job off. I've already got all the test results needed to issue the cert but I will only do that once its 100% complete (and paid).

So where do we stand with this, I don't care where the ÂŁ600 comes from but nothing on this earth will get me to sit at a PC and type a cert out/sign the job off unless the money is in our bank. Apparently the builder told the customer that he would get someone else in to finish the job off if necessary. I would love that as I would definitely be vindictive if someone else signed the job off, I know you can check if NIC jobs are signed off but how do you check the NAPIT side of things?

Really the moral is - don't work for builders, I've never worked for one that hasn't tried to do us over in one way or another. I wouldn't mind but this joker is 10% of our work load but 80% of the hassle we get.
 
A few answers to you regarding the builder.
one tell him I have made a contract with you. Pay me. Give him a notice of intent
Two, no payment,
no test certs
Three, tell his customer that you are not coming back.
If with the NIC, you must do part p the work, but don't do any paper work to hand over to the builder or the his customer.
Has for him to finish your job off, has no hell in chance, would you go and finish some body job, alarm bells will start ringing.
 
This was from the latest email we go from him.


So, I thought I would put these items in an e-mail to hopefully resolve;

1/ My client has exhausted their funds to complete the works & wish to carry out any variations at a later date (paid directly to yourselves). There are elements of the contract works that they wish to put on hold to use in lieu of variations they wish to complete. I am trying to be amicable to conclude the project & get paid the money that I am owed, I am caught in a position I don't want to be in but this is outside of my control

2/ I agreed with yourself that the untility room would be priced upon a days day work, at the minute I am being charged the following ÂŁ210 (last invoice which has been paid in full) ÂŁ210 plus ÂŁ90 plus ÂŁ240 this invoice this is totalling ÂŁ750 for the untility plus works on the new living room including lights which haven't been completed yet.
***** was not happy with the way the utility was priced, I mentioned that he needed to take this matter up with yourself. ***** mentioned ÂŁ30 per point I thought this was a way to resolve but I must have my wires crossed.

Can we pls discuss & agree the invoice then issue the certificate so that I can conclude the works & in turn final account for payment

Can one of you give me a call in the morning?


Honestly, the hassle factor is off the scale with him. Regarding the utility room he said "its minimal work, you need to move a couple of sockets and maybe add another. I told him I could do that in a day and it would probably be a couple of hundred plus bits. When my mate got there there was loads of work to do in it where they had moved walls etc.

Our invoice's for the utility states 1st fix 7 points, 2nd fix 7 points, 2nd fix 3 original points, we have supplied all the materials including half a dozen downlights, the bill for that was ÂŁ510. There was also an additional invoice for ÂŁ240 for work in the kitchen, the client decided they didn't want a couple of lights doing in the old kitchen but the builder said bill him the full amount anyway as it was priced anyway.

I'm not sure how he expects "moving a couple of sockets" to work out at the same price as nearly re-wiring it all and supply all the new materials. See what I mean about the hassle factor.
 
The good builders are few and far between and of those after some time they will quite often turn bad

Turn the tables on him and ask him what %age he is putting on your invoice before it gets to the customer

I had it many years ago we did a lot of installation work for a wireless data solutions company while they occasionally moaned at some of our pricing they would see our side when we pointed out some of the costs that pushed the price up in turn they were working for data networking companies who would have a moan about our install costs a major issue came to light on one job when the end customer asked us for a tiny addition to the job given we were pushed down slightly on price and we didn't have enough margin to do it, the customer got a bit irate and it came out how much he was being charged, the data network company had a 100% uplift on our price to diffuse the situation I agreed to look at the extra bit now knowing there was some margin to do it and contacted my customer who went ballistic when I told them how much their customer had put on the price when they had only added a few % to my price. This happened on a few other jobs that this data network company were involved with where our price was at least 100% more than we had quoted given most of the installs we did for them were quoted by us at ÂŁ2.5k - ÂŁ8k they were on a nice little earner for doing very little
 
In instances like this we work directly for client or walk away

We also do a price per item then everyone knows how much a socket or light switch costs.

The costs are standard white plastic, if client wants fancy stuff we drop ÂŁ4 per item off the cost and they buy the shiny sockets etc
 
I will never contract out to any other builder again, I price a job on a extension
Many moons ago, I price the job for the builder on the behalf his customer his customer to pay me in the end , price was for pvc gear, and the customer wanted metel fronts like the previous spark when he rewired it, we wanted metel fronts.
No pvc look at the contract.
Next thing builder can you do the same price for metel fronts, yes but will cost more, you tell your customer, he wants the same fronts, where did the last one get them from, orange house, don't do them any more, so it will cost him to source from some body else, comprandy.
 
I'm more annoyed about how much time its costing me more than the money at this stage, I wouldn't mind but my mate is dealing with it mostly. He is prepared to go back and forth a million times with messages between himself and the client/builder but that's up to him, however he keeps ringing me telling me about any updates and I'm not that interested, I just want my money and if it notin the bank by the end of the day the test results are going in the shredder and I'll just block their numbers. Life is too short, especially when I've got my head under my floorboards trying to install my extension plumbing so I can have heating and hot water tonight and the phone is going every 30 minutes.
 
The good builders are few and far between and of those after some time they will quite often turn bad

Turn the tables on him and ask him what %age he is putting on your invoice before it gets to the customer

I had it many years ago we did a lot of installation work for a wireless data solutions company while they occasionally moaned at some of our pricing they would see our side when we pointed out some of the costs that pushed the price up in turn they were working for data networking companies who would have a moan about our install costs a major issue came to light on one job when the end customer asked us for a tiny addition to the job given we were pushed down slightly on price and we didn't have enough margin to do it, the customer got a bit irate and it came out how much he was being charged, the data network company had a 100% uplift on our price to diffuse the situation I agreed to look at the extra bit now knowing there was some margin to do it and contacted my customer who went ballistic when I told them how much their customer had put on the price when they had only added a few % to my price. This happened on a few other jobs that this data network company were involved with where our price was at least 100% more than we had quoted given most of the installs we did for them were quoted by us at ÂŁ2.5k - ÂŁ8k they were on a nice little earner for doing very little
At least he has been open about that one, he pockets 20% of our cost allegedly. Or as he puts it in his office speak "It's costings plus 20% markup on your labour and material rates" or something equally as boring.
 
Another email has just come through.


Hope your both well, can I ask that either of you contact me to discuss my e-mail below so that we can amicably resolve to complete the project & sign off.

If we cannot resolve this & or make contact, I will have no alternative but to appoint another electrician to complete the works & sign off. This is an Avenue which I would rather avoid as I feel it is unnecessary as this can simply be avoided through communication.

Please note that I need to get these matters resolved & signed off by the end of this week either preferably through yourselves failing that a third party


I don't think he gets it at all, the only possible way he will get a cert off me is to deposit the money in the bank, nothing else in the world will make me do one otherwise. Where is something clear and concise I can send him that explains that signing off someone else's work is illegal and could get them thrown out of the NIC or NAPIT. Not that anyone with any sense would do that anyway unless they were a close and trusted friend.

All I would have to do would be to go on the NIC website in a few months and check whether the job was signed off or not, if it was then I could make life very difficult for them indeed, why would you risk it.
 
Decide... do you want to work for him ever again. Could you get work from the client or their friends .One of them will be happy . work with that one !
 
Decide... do you want to work for him ever again. Could you get work from the client or their friends .One of them will be happy . work with that one !
That ship has well sailed. We wont ever do another job for the builder, I can't cope with the hassle. As for his client, my mate has been back and done a few things for him as extras but I wasn't interested as I think he will be awkward about paying, not sure if my mate has been paid yet or not.

I'm very choosy about who I work for nowadays, certainly no more site work and I only pick who I think are the decent customers now. Its great not having a mortgage and low(ish) bills.
 

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