Contesting final invoice - please help!

[Nickfromwales]

6 minutes ago, Tom said:

 

The item on the invoice says for" scaffold and hire of tower scaffold for eight weeks". This has been paid. No mention of the tower scaffold was made for the next six months as it collected dust.

Cool. They don’t have a leg to stand on there then, as the extra cost would have had to be raised as a variation order.

 

8 minutes ago, Tom said:

 

The cracks were brought to their attention at the time and they arranged for the tiles to be replaced. No mention was made of a cost to me. 

In contrast, in a separate incident the tilers cut out completely the wrong shape for the shower valve, the contractor vigorously denied responsibility and I ended up replacing the tiles myself.

What a bunch of shit heads.

 

Stick to your guns here and withhold the monies until it’s resolved. Utter tosh!

 

I’d send an email saying you’re applying to the small claims court without further notice, provoked by the zero response.

 

If a CC form is sent out you can contest the validity of their claim and that should halt them in their tracks. Annoyance is you have to pay a fee to reply to it, but that can be added to your claim. 

[saveasteading]

OK. One more turn at being reasonable.

Respond to say their message has been received. That you believe you have dealt with all their issues but they have not responded to them.

That If they have any new argument then you will be happy to receive it.

 

Small claims judge is a proper judge.

It is a small process but no less forbidding.

The jusge will not look kindly on any new argument or evidence. It should all have been argued out already.

They will look at each item in turn, not at the whole. Make sure you have easy- to-demonstrate proofs  of every one of your points.

The judge then adds up the sums and tells one of you to pay the other the difference, and who is to pay the court cost.

The judge is perfectly happy to score 20 : nil. They don't get soft come item 20  unlike an adjudicator might.

BUT if it gets remotely technical they will decide it needs expert reports and is not a small claims matter. Thus try to have a layman's argument plus a technical one.

 

If any of your arguments are weak, compromise on them (only) pdq.

Equally you must be ready to summarise your contra-costs.

 

Don't put your papers up on here....they might be watching.

 

[Tom]

Brilliant, thanks both.

 

So, if I'm going to withhold some money for the electrical certification, should I also withold some for the loss of the 12 month "defect period", as they put it?

 

[Nickfromwales]

4 hours ago, Tom said:

Brilliant, thanks both.

 

So, if I'm going to withhold some money for the electrical certification, should I also withold some for the loss of the 12 month "defect period", as they put it?

 

You simply refuse to pay anything with the reason being that the job is incomplete due to defects in their workmanship. That’s it. 
 

Separate the Scaff claim, that would get binned in the first 60 seconds.

 

Part out the original contract and pursue that uniquely.

 

They sound as thick as 2 short planks tbh, so I doubt they’ve sought 3rd party legal council yet; if they had then they’d have been told that they’re Donald Duck’d. 

[saveasteading]

Pretend you are thd judge. Better yet, get a friend to play the part.

 

You don't pay a retention in bits as they deal with the easy parts, so no more money. 

 

Remind us please. If your arguments all satnd up, do they owe you any money as well as defect correction?

Plus if you need alternative contractors they will prob cost more.

[Tom]

Thanks both. 

There is about 8k outstanding that they say I owe them, split roughly as follows:

 

3k for part of the original tiling cost - this I am now satisfied that I do actually owe them

1.5k charge for replacing a few broken tiles

1.5k for the tower hire

2k suggested by them to be retained until electrical remedial work was complete (though does not cover certification - this they said would only be done once ALL the money had been paid)

 

Their latest correspondence threatens that they would not do the electrical certification and I would lose the 12 month defect guarantee.

 

I was originally going to pay the 3k for the original tiling cost that I agree is owed, but now I'm thinking I need to retain some/all of that if I'm to cover the cost of certification and the cost of a 12 month guarantee. Is that reasonable?

 

I'm trying to look at it from the view of a judge, so want to make it clear at every step that I'm trying to be fair and reasonable.

 

[Nickfromwales]

6 hours ago, Tom said:

1.5k charge for replacing a few broken tiles

Eh? For tiles THEY broke??!? “Get F*****D would be my reply to that. 

6 hours ago, Tom said:

1.5k for the tower hire

Just “no”, with no further discussion. 
 

6 hours ago, Tom said:

2k suggested by them to be retained until electrical remedial work was complete (though does not cover certification - this they said would only be done once ALL the money had been paid)

 

Their latest correspondence threatens that they would not do the electrical certification and I would lose the 12 month defect guarantee.

They have a legal obligation afaik regarding warranty. I'm not so sure they can just unplug that, but it may be that their standard (obligatory) 90 days is all they have to provide, and the sales patter extended that ‘courtesy’ by 9 months.

 

TBH I doubt these lot would come back and honour it anyways so just write that off imho.

 

Any decent sparky will come and do an EHIC(?) so you’d be covered by that via 3rd party sparky.

 

Pay the £3k you owe, withhold the £2k, which I think is (more than) fair and pragmatic, plus demonstrates you wish to resolve ‘amicably’.

 

They may just go and crawl back under their stone then and leave sleeping dogs lay. 

[SteamyTea]

8 hours ago, Tom said:

split roughly as follows

Is it slit into deep invoices, or clumped together as one invoice?

This, I think from my rudimentary contract law studies at university, makes a difference.

It is akin to buying a pint of milk at Tesco in the morning, then buying some teabags in the afternoon. Then, when you go to make some tea, you find the milk is off. You can't go back to Tesco with the milk, but the teabag's receipt and expect a replacement/refund for the milk.

[saveasteading]

1.5 disputed as unsatisfactory tiling.

1.5 disputed as not applicable

2k for electrics they agree is incomplete.

So 5k is disputed and justified readily????

 

They demand 8k but refuse to complete the works.

 

now i speculate:You believe that getting another contractor to remove and complete the tiles and electrics will cost  not 3.5 but between 5 and 7k?????? because new contractors will want a premium for getting involved in a problem job if at all.

Plus replacing cracked tiles is extra work.

Plus you allow a large contingency in case there are other problems. Why did they crack? Can you get replacements that match exactly ( same batch even).

Might you have to replace them all? I've no idea the cost.

What if there are issues with the electrics?  Maybe it has big ossues which us why they want to jump ship. What contingency should you allow?

 

So  you could agree that 3k is due for extra tiling costs but need a contingency for the other works.

 

You should have told them this already though. 

 

List all contingencies and costs separately in case the judge disagrees with any.

[Tom]

15 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Is it slit into deep invoices, or clumped together as one invoice?

 

It's all on one itemised invoice  

 

18 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

Pay the £3k you owe, withhold the £2k, which I think is (more than) fair and pragmatic, plus demonstrates you wish to resolve ‘amicably’.

 

The 2k that they have already agreed I can withhold is to cover remaining electrical work and remedial work due to damage to walls caused by one of their workers. The cost of the EIC certification isn't taken in to account with this. With this in mind, I'm inclined to withhold the 2k AND additional money to cover certification - I've had a quote from a good sparks who said he can issue an EICR (which BC will accept) and it would be 3-4 days work perhaps, so approx £1200. In addition, now that they have thrown this 12 month warranty thing at me in another attempt to put pressure on, I'd like to throw that back at them and say I'm going to withhold more money to cover a 12 month warranty. Does that sound like a reasonable thing to do? If this ever ended up in front of the beak I want to look reasonable.

 

Thanks @saveasteading, the cracked tiles have already been replaced by the contractor - this was 6 months ago, I pointed them out at the time, they bought replacement tiles and had them fitted. Only now are they saying that I am liable for this cost and they have tacked it on to the end of the final invoice.

 

 

 

[saveasteading]

Ok. I think you have now got it all in your head. Draft it here if if helps.