Aibu to not want to pay the full amount?

[gingerginger2]

We had a quote for some work in our garden, which was £1300. we agreed to it, mainly through inexperience I think.

The Gardner’s came to do the work today and it took 3 of them 4 hours.

Given that materials could be bought for £300, aibu to not want to pay them £300 each for a half day?

I‘ve questioned the invoice and they said they estimated it would take a day, and they only quite by days.

We did agree to the quote. But it feels like a total rip off.

The work they did is ok. Sufficient. No above and beyond, just sufficient.

@RedPink it depends who you employ to do work for you, we see lots of dodgy firms like this and it makes me cross, our neighbours even acknowledged a firm they got to quote where like this but still employed them. However reputable firms will be paying the standard local rate for the skill and labour levels involved or they wouldn’t have staff, the boss will be working all day, dealing on top of that with emails, phone calls, visiting to survey, pricing materials, typing up and sending quotes, issuing invoices, paying the wages each week and materials, completing tax returns, visiting the accountant, meetings at the bank, it goes on and on and is often done at the weekend and late into the night. Trust me, running a small company is relentless and the boss is generally dealing with a shit tonne more than the team onsite.

“I would check their VAT status. For those rates and that size of business, i would expect the business to be VAT-registered. If not, I would ask HMRC to investigate.”

Wtf? Why?!

Sorry, I work as a gardener in the South of England (so possibly more expensive) and in my opinion you have overpaid for having some raised beds made.
Quotes are a tricky thing, obviously as you have agreed to pay xyz and in that instance you need to pay what has been agreed. However, when we quote for a job, we also quote our hourly rate and the total number of hours we think will be needed to complete the work. We always over quote and regularly come in under budget, which we then pass on to the client. We make this clear on our initial consultation. It's a system which works for us and has ensured we get a lot of repeat work.
I would really like to know where a gardener/landscaper can earn £83 ph. I would happily move to that area!

He may have thought he would be working alone but managed to get help in?

Imagine hiring someone to paint your living room for £250 and when it takes less than a full day ask them to also do the bathroom while they’re there 🤦🏼‍♀️
How difficult is it to understand you agreed to pay £1300 for a job. The job was done. Whether it took 5 minutes, 5 days or 5 months.

How can 50% labour and 50% materials work? It’s completely unrelated. What if a job has 2 grands worth of materials but only takes a day to install?

Materials plus profit mark up
Labour number of men x number of hours plus profit mark up
Overheads (insurance, admin, tools, vehicles, fuel etc) plus profit mark up.
Tax.

YABU. They quoted and they did the job.

Its not like they did a crap job or didn't turn up etc so don't deserve you screwing them over

You always get 3 quotes. Minimum. Part of this is to give you an idea of what a reasonable price is for the work you want done in your local area.

Because pass under VAT rules the total price of a job including materials is VATable. It wont take a business long to reach the VAT trading threshold at £1300 a job for 2 days work. Failure to register for VAT is often a sign, being kind, of a very poorly run business, but more likely a business that fails to comply with any regulations. I dont know about you but I am tired of paying tax as an ee when many businesses choose not to pay their fair share of tax.

Of course they can estimate what they like - and you then say yes or no. You said yes.

1000 for 3 half days is £660 a day!!! That‘s fucking mental.
It sounds like your objection is that you don’t think they deserve such a high hourly salary? So you’d be happy paying the exact same amount for the exact same job if it had taken twice as long, because then they’d have earned half as much per hour.

Firstly you’re over-estimating their hourly salary because there are a lot of hidden costs. Secondly you’re under-estimating their time because they presumably have to fetch materials and give quotes. And thirdly you agreed an amount not an hourly salary.

Vat threshold is 85k.

I’m curious how much work the company gets outside of their busy season, landscape gardening must be pretty dead at certain times of year and how that balances out the summer.

I do also wonder how builders who do extensions stay under it when they’re doing more than a few a year.

I’m well aware how VAT works. I just don’t understand why you’d assume they’re on the fiddle and try to get them investigated for totally surpious reasons - you have no reason for any suspicion at all

Companies like this are almost always better off registered anyway as they’re likely to receive a net rebate.

Why would they want to stay under it redcherries? They can reclaim their output VAT if they register

Also if they did in time they could be on the VAT fixed rate scheme- charge the customer 20% pay HMRC 10%. Keep the difference

YABU. You were given a quote, you agreed to the quote, the job was done. Pay them what you agreed.

@Passthecherrycoke there’s many small builders carrying out residential works that aren’t vat, if that’s your main line of business and the home owner has the voice of 2 companies who both quote the same for your works but one is non vat and the other is vat the home owner is most likely to save themselves the 20%. It makes it harder to find residential work against the guys who are happy just to earn x amount each week and keep things smaller. Doesn’t matter if you can claim it back if people won’t choose you to do the work as you cost so much more.

Commercial is a different animal 😁

@RedPink

Obviously you are meant to negotiate a price before the work is done but that doesn’t mean you can’t, at least, try to negotiate afterwards.

That is exactly what it means. Trying to negotiate after the job has been completed is just being a CF.

I’m well aware of that

Why did you ask then? You asked why they would want to stay under it and I answered, because it’s so much harder to get residential building work if you charge 20% on top of others in that field.

Because that’s neither here nor there if you’re doing enough work to be VAT registered. It’s a fairly obvious point but they’ll always be a difference between say a low value handyman and a builder doing 5 extensions a year

@spongedog

I would check their VAT status. For those rates and that size of business, i would expect the business to be VAT-registered. If not, I would ask HMRC to investigate

WTAF?! You have no idea how someone else's business works! The threshold for VAT is £85,000. That's a huge amount more than the OP's (small) job!

All those of you siding with the OP share her sense of entitlement. The fact remains, she was quoted for a job, and she accepted that. It's been done to a suitable level, therefore she cannot now try to argue that she isn't going to pay for it.

I think we’re actually agreeing on the same point but approaching it from different angles. My point is there are questionable builders who hide from the vat threshold to maintain 5 extensions a year without losing work or paying the vat man. Like you I’m much more of the opinion that if your doing the work you do things as should be. Something even more seasonable like gardening must have huge turnover for a short period of time then be scratching for work for months over long periods which must balance out towards the threshold, so pp implying they should be investigated is

They quoted for the job

I honestly as a freelancer would never charge for more hours than I actually worked.

As I said, i‘d Be embarrassed that I quoted so innacurately!

What are you on about?! You've just said yourself that they quoted for the job. The quote is not inaccurate, they didn't charge you for more hours than they worked because they did not charge by the hour at all! They did the job you paid them to do.

You assumed it was a days work, just because your assumption was incorrect does not mean that they have somehow deceived you. Would it have made you happier if they had worked more slowly to produce the same end result, just so you could feel like you had gotten your money's worth?

You got several different quotes, so it's not as though you didn't have anything to compare it to. And it sounds like this company were not even the cheapest, but having the work done sooner was worth it to you.

At the end of the day you agreed the quote, the work was done, and if I were you the only thing I'd be embarrassed about is trying to get out of paying.

Chatting to my Gardner he said he often over quotes on jobs he doesn't want to put people off but quite often they still ask him to do the work

I understand re agreeing to a contract etce etc.... But... Surely implicit in this is that the company is charging a reasonable rather than excessive rate..

My next question... When you are new to getti g quotes.... How do you know what is reasonable.... Yes I knoe get several quotes... But in a world where many massively over quote its pretty impossible to know what is a reasonable amount for the job..