Aibu to quibble this bill

[Sillyscrabblegames]

Plumber quoted for two days work, lots of different tasks including connecting up several fittings and running new pipework.

He worked one day, didn't finish the whole job, and got something wrong so dh had to redo some work and then finish off the job.

He has now invoiced for the full amount.

Dh doesn't want to pay full amount as it just wasn't good enough and he spent half the time quoted for here anyway. So he offered him one day rate. (the rate is all laid out on the invoice for each day)

Plumber chap not happy with the situation and so has come back to say it was a long day with no breaks so he wants that reflected. And also it will take a few hours for him to sort the building control paperwork for the job as it included wiring in an extractor fan. He will do this from home and that is why there are two days on the invoice.

Dh offered him full day rate plus a pro rata amount extra to reflect extra long day (he was here from 10 to 6).

He then comes back to say also we need to add 20%onto the whole bill as he has to pay the person who gave us his number a fee for matching him up with us. I have never heard of this arrangement before and I don't think it has anything to do with us.

I think he is a cf.

Are we being unreasonable or are we right to be quibbling this?

Does he have any accreditation or governing companies/trade bodies (not sure what you call them) that you could contact and ask? I had to do this with a window company when they didn't correct issues and they made them if they wanted to keep their backing)

He sounds very inexperienced in terms of what is needed to be self employed. He got his quoting wrong from the outset.

Did he do a proper walk through with you? Look at the circuitry, check in detail what the job would entail?

I wouldnt start badmouthing him around the place. Tell the plumber what went wrong factually (dont call him a chancer, cowboy etc). Getting quoting, billing and collecting debt right takes practice. Doing the actual work is only part of the job done well.

If you were happy with the actual work he did then this may be a chance to get a good tradesman on side at the start.

DH was an electrician. He learnt a lot from his early jobs about getting the admin side right.

You will need all building certificates if you sell your house. We had a boiler installed and didn't realise it needed a certificate, our plumber had moved away and so we had to effectively have someone come and reinstall it to get the certificate. Was a real ball ache.

I wouldn't necessarily expect to see building regs certificates for every last job unless the house had been fully refurbished. If a new boiler had been installed then I would expect there to be a certificate for that.

Just trying to give the OP a bit of perspective.

If you sell a house you can have indemnity policies for some things too

When we sold I was surprised we need certificates for everything, each window replaced, electric plugs installed, oven.. everything. We were able to get copies of it all except the boiler, the guy was gas registered but for whatever reason failed to certificate and we had no idea what documents were needed at the time, we had just trusted him. We couldn't get indemnity, we had to get the install redone.

IME solicitors will ask for certificates as they are on their list of things to ask for. If the buyer really wants the house they wont press.