To not pay neighbour a 50% increased price for work he commissioned?

[Faceicle]

DH and I rent out a house that we used to live in, presently we live somewhere else. We're still friendly with the neighbours, it's a terraced street and earlier this year we spoke to our new next door neighbour on WhatsApp. He'd recently moved in and needed remedial work on his roof which he'd costed and booked in. We agreed to contribute to the portion that affected our party wall - we didn't request or specify this work but it felt like the right thing to do given that it affected our property.

He's now sent me the final invoice and highlighted my portion which has increased by 50% of the original quote. And he's specifically requested that I contribute to additional scaffolding hire because of bad weather and therefore extended use. I am in pretty tight financial circumstances due to suddenly losing a job and I can't afford this extra expense. I am going to ask that he honours and accepts our original contribution given that we didn't ask for this work. I know that building costs tend to increase but I also don't think I gave him carte blanche to use my offer as a blank cheque. AIBU?

Did he give you a quote originally? And did you agree to that?

Yes, he had a quote before the work began and I agreed to pay a set amount of it. It looks like the job spiraled when they were in situ and this is the first I heard of it.

Well then
You say no I agreed to pay half the quote

Yer if he expected you to pay an increase he should have checked at each point when an additional cost was incurred. I don't think you should pay it and I would explain things like you outlined.

We had a similar thing with our neighbours. We discussed having a new fence put up and agreed if we did we would go 50/50 on it (they own the fence but it is more visible on our property so we thought we'd contribute). Our neighbour said she would get a few quotes and that's how we left it. The next we knew a handy man was there putting up the new fence and we received a bill. I thought this was so cheeky as we hadn't even seen a quote, let alone agreed to it. We did pay it as the price the neighbour got was very good but I didn't think it was the right way to go about it.

This.
It’s really cheeky of him to ask for more money without discussing with you first. You agreed a price and that is all you should pay. Honestly, he should be grateful you offered to contribute at all!

I getnwhere you're coming from bt the bad weather could hardly be avoided, norws there a cheaper alternative like packing the scaffolding away and putting it up again when the weather was better.

So I thinknit depends why the bill went up.

Could be using you to pay more of his share and he should have asked permission before agreeing to increased costs. Send the original agreed amount

We’ve had scaffolding a couple of times recently and it’s been one cost irregardless of the length of time we had it. We were effectively storing it for them until the next job and managed to paint the house while it was up for roof repairs so it was win win for us and for them.
I think he’s taking the p - don’t pay any extra, only what you agreed.

If the quote was done on WhatsApp, take a screenshot of it in case he deletes the message.

Was it a quote or an estimate? Was it in writing? If you had the quote in writing, you would be on safe ground to pay only the agreed amount. However if the bill has been paid - you won’t get it back.