Dealing with a contractor at the end of the build...what should we do here?

In My Humble Opinion
1

TL;DR version: Contractor, who is a friend of a friend, is asking for more money than previously agreed after the job is done.

Full version: Our friends got married back in January and we hosted the reception at our house. One of the guests is the husband of a woman who works for our friend. He’s a contractor and we mention that we’re looking to have some changes done to our kitchen. Fast forward a month, we get an invoice of items to be done and the total bill of $15K. Included is a new dishwasher, microwave, two new cabinets, a new sink with garbage disposal, a new Cambria countertop, new lights, backsplash, and installation of all of that with a 4-6 week timeline to completion. He wants half down and half at completion so we give him a check for $7500.

He begins the list and starts getting the cabinets made and we ask him to have the kitchen and dog room painted, he agrees and says it will be $700 which includes repairing a spot of water damage on the ceiling. We agree and pay him that $700 separately. The cabinets take a looooooong time, but the place is painted and the lights are hung. The problem with one of the lights is that the previous light had covered up the beadboard area that was cut out to fit it. So we get some medallions and the contractor installed those with no problem…or so we thought. We also had him order a new oven that we pay for out of pocket ourselves.

Eventually, the new cabinets are installed, the appliances are put in, the countertop and sink put together, and the backsplash installed. This finally ended on Tuesday with the plumber coming back with a special part to attach the garbage disposal to the sink. It took almost 4 months, but we do like the work he’s done.

He then texts us and says that he’ll bring over the revised bill for the remainder. This makes us wonder what he means by “revised” so we ask him. He then goes through a list saying that the extra part for the plumber and the extra day he had to come back cost him more and that we changed our mind from granite to Cambria (which is true, but we did that before and the contractor wrote Cambria on the list he created). So after pointing that out to him, he then comes back and says that he did more tile work than what was actually backsplash. At this point, we start to realize he’s just going to keep coming up with reasons to charge us more. Maybe he underbid the project and isn’t making that much money.

We feel we honor by paying him in a timely manner for everything and when there was an extra expense, like the painting, we paid for that separately. Suddenly there are extra things he wants to charge us for. We want to just call “shenanigans” on him, but it’s also a friend of a friend. Part of me wants to tell him to go piss up a rope and we are paying for the amount we agreed on (and legally, we should be in the right), but if he is out extra money for the things he had done, well… I’m not sure. I mean, when we go over the proposal given to us, it actually says that he will supply the backsplash. We bought all of the tiles for it which ended up being about $1500.

It’s hard not to be strict dicks about this, but at the same time, we don’t want to be taken advantage of either. What do you think?

2

The time for him to charge more for out-of-contract work was when he became aware of it. At which point it should have been written down & signed & added to the contract. Stand your ground - there’s nothing dickish about saying “We’re sticking to the written contract.”

Think of it this way - you rarely hire a contractor. He’s ALWAYS dealing with customers. He knows what he’s doing, vs. how he should have done it.

3

How much are we talking? A few hundred, or several thousand?

If it was a small amount, I’d tend to just pay it as a sign of goodwill seeing as he’s a friend-of-a-friend. We had a similar situation several years ago, where we hired a company to paint the interior of our house. The final bill was a few hundred bucks over the contract. I asked my brother (who recommended the painter to us) about it, and he said “the guy does great work and he’s honest. If he says it took a little longer than he thought, he’s not making it up, just pay him” and we did, in part because the work WAS great, and we wanted to keep the goodwill open in case we ever needed more painting.

However, if it was wildly above the estimate, and you are not certain of the guy’s honesty/quality of work, I’d definitely push back. Any chance you can ask around and see what other people think of his work, or maybe check something like Angie’s List?

4

We had a similar situation. We ended up paying what was asked but specifically told him that it was for the sake of our mutual friend.

5

About 15% over. So about $1800.

Unfortunately, he’s not reviewed on Angie’s List (we have an account and checked).

We had bid this out to 8 people. Only one other company ever came back with a price which was a little cheaper actually. We do like the work he did, he had good attention to detail. But it’s just the sudden fishiness(sp?) at the end where he was going to charge extra for Cambria and then after having that pointed out to him that that was already agreed to, he wanted to charge more for something else.

6

You can add him to Angie’s List yourself, and if he only has your one bad review, it can hurt his business.

I agree with standing your ground, and with what muldoonthief said - he should have brought up these issues as they occurred and put them in writing with your agreement to pay, or else not done them. My contractor did that with several issues, and it can be done through email which (to me) counts as a written record. Then he added it to the billing before the next payment.

Don’t let a contractor get away with “poor me” arguments - if they are too stupid to figure out their costs correctly up front, or to correct them as they go, they shouldn’t be contractors. Contracting is a business, not a trade like carpentry or plumbing. If he can’t do the business part, he should go back to working in his skilled trade of choice.

Of course, only you can judge as to how this would affect your friendship with the third party, and how important that is to you. If your friend brings it up, show them the paperwork and see if they still argue for the contractor.

7

This. If you hire a guy to dig a ditch and it takes him much longer than he thought because he hit boulders or whatever, sure you pay him more.

But he’s a contractor and the contractor’s job is to know what it will cost him. It’s not your job to guarantee him a profit.

I say be polite, but firm, and stick with what is written.

8

This is the best way to handle changes. It’s also good to be clear whether an item in the contract is lump sum or if, to the contractor, it’s actually hours times salary.

On the one hand estimating is not an exact science and the more time a small contractor spends trying to produce a more accurate estimate, the more overhead he has to assign to the job. On the other hand, with a loose estimate, it’s easy to jack up the price by adding things that maybe should have been included with the major items. The typical way to deal with that, besides keeping the change orders clear, is to assume that any contracted job includes an 10% contingency. Then you either argue and negotiate to stay within the 10% or you argue and negoriate to keep your costs as low as possible.

Which you do depends on your personal style and your assessment of whether he’s arguing and negotiating to claim as much of that 10% as possible, just because, to his mind, it’s there and available. Some contractors really do see it as leaving money on the table. If you think that’s going on, you may feel better defending your side strongly.

The engineers in our section act as project managers, and the hardest nosed engineer we have used to work for contractors. His stance is that you can’t work to “be fair” because that’s working for the other guy while the other guy isn’t working for you. While a contractor is pointing out things that took more time to do, he won’t also list any items that went quicker than expected and therefore saved him money. Our hard nose keeps repeating, “They’ll act like you’re draining their profits and that they won’t get to eat next month, but what they’re really working for is their Christmas Bonus.”

So your guy is probably not manufacturing bogus charges in order to dupe you, and there’s no shame in paying an increase within standard contingency if there really were changes, especially when the cost wasn’t pinned down before the extra work was done. But if you protest the charges and argue to get them reduced, you won’t be offending him or putting him out of business (assuming it’s a well established, sound company), because he’s used to that. (Although he may act abused as SOP and some guys really can’t manage to not take business personally. They tend not to stay in business long, though.)

Feel free to stop thinking about it from his side and choose what to do by guaging your own comfort zone.

9

I’d say the main issue is not how much to pay him. The main issue is what will happen to your friendships if you let this issue create bad feelings.
This isn’t just a private argument between you and a contractor… there are a lot of other people who are going to hear all about it. How many of these people will be spending time at your house in the future? How awkward will it be six months from now, or a year from now?

You are completely right that you don’t owe anything beyond the written contract. But sometimes it’s better not to be right, but to be smart.
A year from now, you won’t remember the bad taste in your mouth that came from overpaying to the contractor. But if you allow bad feelings to disrupt friendships–you’ll end up with a bad taste in your mouth that you might regret for a long time.
If next year, the newly married couple hosts a party at their house and decide not to invite you because the contractor guy is also going to be there—will that be worth having saved a few bucks today?

10

That better be one hell of a party…one for the ages, or yes, I’d be happy to miss it if my friends decide to invite the contractor over me.

Contractor is being unprofessional by trying to come at you after the work is done. If there were extra things that he did, he should have pointed them out along the way. And from your description, he did to that and you paid him extra. Now he’s trying a second tactic, by adding it on at the end as well. Write him a check for the final amount you owe, and tell him you’re done.

11

I think you’ve already cut him a ton of slack considering you could argue that the tiles were supposed to be included and the fact that he took 4 months to do a 4-6 week job. And wow, I’m probably a little uneducated on what it costs to remodel a kitchen but $15k for what you got sounds wicked high, as does $700 to paint a couple rooms.

12

Show him the contract where it says he was supposed to supply the backsplash. Point out you paid $1,500 for tiles. Say you’ll subtract it from his $1,800 bill and pay him $300. That way he gets a little, and you don’t gouged at the end. Suggest this is the best offer he’s going to get.

It sounds like he’s pushing on you to see how much more he can get. I say push back, firmly.

13

All of the problems I’ve had with contractors have been at the end, when they start a sentence with, “Well, y’know…”

Most of them suck at properly estimating jobs, and it’s not until they are paying their suppliers and subs and so forth that they realize they just worked ten days for about half of minimum wage. And so the shenanigans begin.

14

I’m often a subcontractor on jobs (and being a painting contractor, we are right at the end of the job where typically cost and time are way over, and customers get understandably cranky.)

I think your contractor is being unprofessional. It’s the GC’s JOB and job description to know what things cost, upfront. Or to let the client know when there’s a change or overage, right upfront, and get permission for the change order or upcharge. I think you are being overly fair. I also think your GC needs to suck it up and take the loss, because it’s due to his miscalculation that the job went over budget.

If I as a sub give an estimate and screw up (it happens) I suck it up and make less money. Because a contract is a contract, my word is my word, etc. I think you should tell him to piss up a rope, because he is trying to take advantage of you, perhaps he thinks he can get away with it because he’s a friend of a friend.

15

Depends on where you are. Around me in MA those numbers are reasonable. If someone told me it was 30k for their kitchen remodel I wouldn’t give it a second thought. 300 a room for painting is the starting point, it goes up from their based on size and complexity.
Quit giving him time to adjust his numbers. Ask for a final bill in writing with any exceptions from the original estimate. Then when you know what that is you can have a conversation about reasonable exceptions.

16

Contractor’s bids are estimates. I’m not exactly sure how they figure bids. As you can imagine there are a lot of variables. They don’t know what they’ll find after tearing into the walls. The OP’s job sounds pretty straight forward. A few surprises when they took down the old lights.

I usually wouldn’t question a bill going over a few hundred bucks. The guy probably worked a few hours more than estimated and bought extra materials.

It’s a balancing act for contractors. Bid too high and you may lose the job. A low bid gets the job, but a few extra hours work puts you over budget.

$1800 over is excessive. He should have said earlier that the job was bigger than he budgeted for.

17

The contractor that roofed my house in 2002 miscalculated the number of squares. I noticed his number of squares was less than what my insurer adjuster had calculated. (roofers measure the roof and charge based on the number of squares). I assumed the contractors measurements were more accurate.

Sure enough I saw my stack of new shingles dwindle as they were installed. I look at the roof’s still bare areas and told him then I thought we were short. He didn’t comment. Next day he ran out. We had to order 12 or 15?? more bundles of shingles to finish. I paid his extra labor and for the materials.

Mistakes happen. I could clearly see what happened. He wasn’t scamming me.

18

I second this idea.

19

Depends on how the contract is written. If it’s written as Firm Fixed Price, it’s an iron-clad amount, contractor bears the risk.

As the contract is not posted here, we can’t speculate as to the legalities (and IANAL anyway). But if there is any change that occurs during the job that affects either price or promised outcome (e.g., materials ordered by customer turn out to be unavailable), the customer must approve a change request in advance. There is absolutely no justification to come to you at the end of the job and ask for more money, regardless of the reason.

If the contract is instead Time and Materials, then the estimate is truly an estimate, and he has a right to bill you for actual time and materials but must also provide a full accounting for it. However, some states may have laws about the degree to which final billing may exceed the estimate.

But with the personal situation, it sounds like you are trying to decide how much friendships are worth. Can’t help you there.

20

Keep in mind, this contractor isn’t your friend, he’s a friend of a friend.