Quoted for job but invoiced per workman

[User1742777]

Hello, I was quoted £30 an hour from a stonemason. to remove a section of render from the rear of my house so I could see the condition of the bricks underneath (damp issues). They were maybe just over an hour so have invoiced for 1.5 hours (fine ok) but two of them arrived and I have been invoiced for two people, plus VAT the total comes to £108. My written message prior to this appointment was “The cost would be £30 p/h”. I just feel aggrieved do I really owe £108?

Sounds like you had an estimate rather than a quote.

It’s a tricky one. If a cleaner quotes £15 per hour and two show up, then I pay both as I know it halves the time, so I’m paying the same amount overall.

But if I booked a tradesman, I would assume the same thing as you. I don’t know why it’s any different.

I understand you OP. Some odd responses on here.

The quote was unprofessional and definitely misleading - whether that was deliberate or not is hard to say.

I would make a point of pointing out to them that the quote is misleading. If they apologise, fine. There’s a chance they assumed you would know the score and will be more clear next time. If they get snarky you could always suggest that you reduce the payment and they can sue you for the balance. Which they won’t because the quote was misleading. But depending on how unprofessional they are they might take it out on you in other ways.

Lesson learned - everything in writing and always ask for a FINAL all-inclusive quote (not time- dependent or person-dependent or VAT or labour or parts or travel-dependent or whatever else they might want to add in when they’ve started the work). I think most of us who have had builders in have learned this the hard way.

Do you actually want to use this guy again for the lime render?
Or can you get someone else in?
If you're keen to use him again, you obviously don't want to trash the relationship.
But you will need to be more assertive about clarifying exactly how many workers are needed, for how much time, and make it clear that you expect any prices quoted to be inclusive of VAT.
Personally, I think this is quite cheeky of him, I don't think the job should have taken so many person-hours, and if he's charging you for the 20 mins spent in consultation with you (to line up future work) it's unreasonable to expect you to pay an extra £15+VAT for his colleague to hang around, not doing any work, while you two had that chat. I'd pay him £60 max and tell him not to take the piss in future.

Just showed this to my builder DH and he reckons you were charged fairly. He said that it appears to be a neat job and you have to to consider what you don't see, such as equipment use and travel time and expense to your property.

Of course it was fair. £30 an hour per person for a skilled trade including travel, overheads etc is very reasonable. Fixing stuff is expensive, investigating damp issues needs experienced people to understand the issues. By all means find some random person off the street to come and have a look for free but that’s not going to sort the issue is it? You were quoted per hour and they charged per hour, again totally reasonable for investigation work which can be time consuming and complex.

She's not really querying whether the price was fair, more that it doesn't match what she was quoted. If a job costs £100 then say that. The average Joe wouldn't know how long something would take.
I've just had work done on my house. I was quoted a price for the total job. That's what I paid. Some days there were two men here some days three. How the owner pays the staff is not my concern. I want a price for the job

I don’t live in an especially expensive area, but general builders cost around £400 to £500 per day here.
I appreciate that the quote might have been a bit ambiguous, and not really a quote as didn’t specify amount of hours, but I don’t think the overall price was excessive.

Yet you had no clue how much it would cost when you accepted the quote as you didn't ask how long it would take or likely total cost, not sure how this counts as an informed decision

The average Joe would ask how long it would take surely if quoted an hourly rate.
I quote a mix of hourly rate and set fees to my clients. You can guarantee where it's on an hourly rate every client asks how long I think it will take.

The problem is it wasn't known how long it would take as it varies how long render takes to remove, it could have been really tricky and taken ages or really easy and taken minutes. The work was investigative.

The average joe doesn’t know all the costs of building work or how to break down an invoice. If they did, they’d be a builder and would do the work themselves. So it’s unreasonable to expect an average joe to have known that the cost of the work would be different to what they were quoted.

£30 per hour would indeed have been ridiculously cheap. But the thing is, some builders will deliberately under-quote to get the work, then add on all the extras once the job is started.

You haven't got bumped, nobody is coming out to your house and doing that for £45.

I would tell the company when I pay them though, in a kind of "happy with the work, but thought pricing could have been clearer" kind of way

Not necessarily. The tradesman may not be vat registered

I asked a local firm of painters to come and quote for an interior paintwork job in my home. Because it involved a lot of complex work the painter said it was too difficult to give an exact quote as they couldn't tell how long the job would take and asked if I was prepared to take them on trust at an hourly rate - which I agreed to. On various days there were 2, 3 or 4 men working at a time. Of course the end price reflected the number of men working at a time on the job - it never occurred to me to think that an hourly rate meant it would be the same rate for every hour. It was the rate per man hour and that was understood without it being spelled out. I think you are being rather unfair in suspecting that you're being ripped off.

No workman would come house for £45 for any job

This would certainly piss me off.

The point of a quote is so that you know reasonably accurately how much it's going to cost.

Giving a quote without setting out the parameters like per person, vat etc, makes the quote pretty much pointless!

Well, according to some posters it was very obvious and OP should have just “known”.

The OP says in her first post that she is being charged VAT. As she is not a business, any VAT should have been included in the original quote. So in the 30 pounds / hour that’s she was quoted, not on top of it.

And yes his VAT number should be printed on the bottom of his invoice.

If he is not VAT registered and he’s charging her VAT then its fraud.

Reminds me of that joke about a man coming out to fix a boiler.

he bashes the boiler with a tool, takes him 5 minutes. He sends a bill for £100 . The owner of the boiler complains that it only took a moment so the man sends a breakdown of the bill.

bashing boiler £10
for knowing where to hit £90

If you think you’ve been ripped of by having 3 hours of specialist work done at £30 ph, you are mistaken. It’s exactly the price you were quoted. All bills have VAT added.

VAT needs to be INCLUDED in any quotes to consumers. Heres the ASA rules

“Therefore, if your customers are consumers, all prices you quote should include VAT. When VAT is included in the quoted price, it is optional to include a statement to that effect.”

www.asa.org.uk/static/uploaded/adac9dec-45de-4bfe-90a1194ba10ad1d2.pdf

heres guidance from a trade website
www.mybuilder.com/questions/v/24591/can-vat-be-added-on-after-job-complete

HM Government advice
www.gov.uk/tax-on-shopping/where-you-see-vat

”Sometimes VAT is shown on a separate line. This does not mean you’re paying extra - it just shows how much tax is included in the price.

“Invoices from suppliers like builders, painters and decorators must show a separate amount for VAT and their VAT registration number”

I did not have three hours of specialist work.

This.

In the real world most people don’t have unlimited amounts of money for builders to send however many workmen they like and charge whatever they want.

If I take my car to the garage, they give me a quote of materials and labour. When I return to collect it I don’t expect them to say actually we got a few men to work on it so your quote is now tripled!

A quote is a quote for a reason!

Their way of quoting was not helpful, but you agreed to it. I would have asked for a proper quote, not an hourly rate.

But if I had an hourly rate, I would take as a default £30p/h means man hours. In that I would pay the same whether I have two people for one hour or one person for two hours, I would not expect that two people for two hours costs the same as one person for two hours. That makes no sense.

To be honest, you have had two tradespeople come to your house to do whatever and have a bill for £100. I wouldn’t be quibbling it anyway, what on earth do you expect, skilled trades don’t come cheap these days.