That title isn’t quite right, but I couldn’t figure out how to say it without launching into the whole story. Here goes:
My sister and her husband signed a contract to buy a not-quite-finished house last week. Part of the contract involved the contractor finishing the house, of course, including finishing the (as yet unfinished) basement by putting in extra walls and a bathroom. They got a fairly good deal on the house – the contractor, they thought, was really hoping to get more for it, but in the end accepted their offer.
Now, though, they are worried that the contractor is trying to make up for it by squeezing them for other stuff. For example, they asked recently if they were putting in knobs and handles for the kitchen cabinets. They said it was not a “standard feature” and that knobs would be $800 and handles $1200. (Seriously? Knobs and handles have come with all the homes we looked at!) So obviously they’re going to go buy their own (and possibly be charged to install them). I think they may also have to buy their own refrigerator, though they negotiated putting in a stove.
But what they are really worried about – and what I’m hoping Dopers might help with – is this: what things do they need to be vigilant about asking about (besides knobs and handles) so as to save themselves from pain later when they move into the house and find out the house doesn’t have X? A heating system? Gas line? Garbage disposal? Any Dopers have experience with contractors and can tell them the kinds of things they need to be asking about? Thanks!
Have they checked references on this contractor? I know they don’t have a choice, but a ton of satisfied customers would help ease their mind. On the other hand …
I hope they haven’t paid him all the money yet. And I trust there is a contract which specifies what they pay for.
I had an office mate who was having a house built. His father was an electrician, and he had a license in New York, and he know how to read plans, but he still had problems. He felt it necessary to visit the site nearly every day. “That door goes in the other wall, by the way.” (Actually happened.)
In their position, i would have made sure that the contract explicitly stated what would be involved in finishing the house, in great detail, so that the contractor would not be able to nickel-and-dime me like he’s apparently doing to your sister.
Answering your question is going to be somewhat difficult precisely because it seems that the contractor and your sister have different ideas about the definition of “complete.” It would be interesting to know if there’s any laws, or any standard industry code of practice, or even any general industry guidelines, about what features a “complete” house should have.
Even prior practice by the contractor could help you here. Did this same contractor build other houses in the neighborhood? If so, find out what constituted a “complete” house as produced by this contractor in the past, and it will probably give you a good idea of what sort of argument you could sustain if you had to take the guy to court. If he put knobs and handles on the kitchen cabinets in all his other houses, it would be rather difficult for him to argue that knobs and handles should cost extra on your sister’s house.
FWIW, and it may be too late, when we bought a house from a contractor some 8 years ago, the contract stated that we could, at our own expense, hire a home inspector to inspect the house before closing, and the builder would fix all “reasonable and customary” defects found. It worked out OK.
Did your sister pick out specific handles & knobs, or just ask the generic question? IIRC our contract stated that all fixtures would be done at the builders discretion, or we got to pick from a fairly short list, and if we wanted something specific we’d have to pay extra for it. So all rooms got lighting, but the nice ceiling fan fixture my wife wanted for the MBR cost us more.
Your contract specified this? Do you have any memory of other things your contract specified? Lighting, hmm. That’s a good thing to check…
I know they have some kind of home inspection clause. I’ll have to ask them what it says exactly. I don’t think it can be exactly the same, because I would have expected handles and knobs to be reasonable and customary. (and yes, she asked only generically).
Our contract specified that it would be finished in a professional manner and in compliance will all building codes, that reasonable & customary things would be done, & we could get an inspection. It called out big things specifically, like oil heat & central AC, and included a detailed floor plan that they were building to. Note that at the time the contract was written, the house didn’t exist beyond a hole in the ground. It also allowed us weekly inspections while the construction was taking place.
We were given an allowance for built in appliances (stove, dishwasher & microwave) that we could apply towards the purchase. if we wanted to spend more than that, for higher grade appliances, we could and did - the allowance was fairly small and would only have paid for the cheapest available appliances.
Certain things, like carpet, were called out that we’d have to pick a color & type from a selection provided by their carpet supplier. Again, if we wanted to go off-list, we’d have to pay the difference.
Kitchen cabinets, bathroom cabinets & vanities - I know my wife did some work with the kitchen/bath supply place on those. I believe they were covered under an allowance system also, but it must have been a higher allowance, since they’re pretty nice and I don’t remember writing a check for them. I can’t imagine being told the knobs & handles would have been extra.
By contract, any other extras would be selected & paid for by us separate from the closing of the house. So for example, we had a built-in vacuum system installed, but had to pay for that separately & ahead of time.
There were definitely some strange gotchas though. Like if we wanted any extra electrical sockets beyond those required by code (every 12 ft?) we had to pay for each one.
This is what I was wondering about. If the cupboards are designed to not have handles, adding them wouldn’t be reasonable to request.
On the other hand, if they already have holes… Well, at this point you’re probably still better off buying good quality handles that you like, and sticking them on yourself. Otherwise you’ll just have cheap ones stuck on that you need to replace.
OP, I asked my wife about it, and we did have an allowance for selecting kitchen cabinets & bathroom vanities. The knobs & such were “extras”, in the sense that you had to select them separately and they had a material cost separate from that of the cabinets. Nowhere near the $800 range though.
Zenbeam below may be right - if the builder has already installed cabinets that are designed to be handle-less, then installing them may be much more of a pain in the ass, especially if they’ve got to get the cabinet installers back in to do it.
When you order cabinets, they generally don’t come predrilled for handles & knobs, since the size & spacing of the holes depend on the handles & knobs you pick out. Installing them is done by the same guys who install the cabinets.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s standard, at least in my area, to include cabinet hardware and installation. I’ve bought one house new from the builder and another one from the original owner and neither had cabinet hardware in the kitchens or bathrooms. With the home we bought new we could have purchased the hardware ourselves and had them install it for a price but we decided to do it ourselves, and that seems to be the norm in my area. It’s actually pretty easy and not something you need to have the cabinet installers come back in and do. $2000 sounds crazy for a couple hundred in materials and an afternoon drilling holes.
Thanks again, you guys. I’m going to ask my sister if she’s looked at any more houses yet and if they have handles, etc. standard. I don’t live in the same area she does so don’t know what’s standard in her area (where I live there’s basically no new construction except for luxury homes and cheap apartments, both of which have knobs as standard…)
We also had an allowance. It is fairly normal to not have knobs and handles included. Contracts should state exactly what is and isn’t included including materials to be used. If the contract doesn’t say door pulls door pulls will like,y not be included. And door pulls do get quite expensive, it was a few hundred to buy ours ten years ago, and we went cheap. Plus labor. But they are easy to do yourself.
Other things that may not be included, landscaping (we had an allowance and they graded, but the grading they did wasn’t sufficient to lay sod or seed over), a deck wasn’t included. Blinds and window treatments. Kitchen appliances were, but they were lousy, washer and dryer were not. Gas for the range and dryer were non standard for us and we paid extra. The included driveway was gravel only. Often things like towel bars are not included ( ours were). Paint will likely be a builder white spray. Builder standard carpets and pads are usually the least expensive, expect to replace carpets in ten years or less if there wasn’t an upgrade. We had to pay out of pocket for some non standard concrete work and we had non standard energy components added to the home.
These things should be in the contract. If they are not in the contract, there is no entitlement.
Thanks Dangerosa! It’s nice to know they are often not standard.
In further talks with my sister, I think their contract didn’t have a lot of this stuff in it (though it did have blinds, oddly enough). I’m kind of shocked their real estate agent didn’t say anything about it. Well… if either of us ever buys a new house again, I guess we’ll know for next time… Thanks Dopers!