Roofer wants 50% money upfront

[NimbleBee]

Been quoted 3k for some one to come and fix my roof. The man wants 50% of the money upfront before any work even starts.
Is this right as I don't feel comfortable giving money. I have always give money once job is completed.

Equally, I have had loads of work done on my house from a new kitchen, bathroom, garden work, windows and electrical work and all but one asked for between 30 and 50% up front. It really isn't unusual.

We had our roof done last year, didn’t pay anything up front.

Few years ago we had the kitchen done, cost about £11k .. it’s a small kitchen but lots needed doing, didn’t pay a penny it was all done, installed and working. Builder took care of eveything, he was fantastic.

Think that's what happened to us😢. No point in small claims, he now says he has had a nervous breakdown and isn't trading. So even when we would win the case, we wouldn't get the money back.

No I wouldn’t.

we had a payment plan with our builders where we paid a bit in increments eg 10% here then 15% more once this was done

This isn’t true.
many respectable small firms requires some funds ahead of work being done .
usually I want to see an itemised bill that explains the costs of material and labour.
and based on that I will pay a proportion. .

To give a trades view...DH has been a roofer with his own business for 15 years. This year he's starting asking for deposits of 30% on the advice of his trade association. This is due to them seeing an increasing number of customers who are inventing reasons not to pay once the work is complete. I'm not talking shoddy work, these are cases that have been taken to court and the tradesperson has won.

Our association has been going for over 40 years and said they've never seen anything like it in terms of difficult, non-paying customers.

He provides all customers with a deposit insurance (paid for by him at a cost of £15 per job) for their peace of mind.

Do your due diligence on the company. Only pay it by bank transfer into a business account. The roofer should have provided the information about the deposit, in writing. Along with a written quotation, notice of right to cancel, public liability insurance, complaints procedure, T&Cs.

If you didn't get the above, I'd keep looking.

Mmm think about it from his POV.

Wednesday, he has a chance to go order the stuff for your roof. As these things vary, its fairly specific to your roof in type and quantity.

Stuff is delivered to his yard on Friday.

Sunday night, you text and cancel because the dogs leg fell off and needs 2K of surgery to fix and now you can't afford the roof sorting.

Muggins trader is now stuck with a stock of materials he can't use immediately, nor does he know when he can use it, and it needs to be stored, reducing his storage space for materials he can use/knows when he will use.

So now he's £1500 out of pocket, and storage space.

He only needs that to happen a couple of times in the same month and he is fucked, no more storage for goods/materials, but also no cashflow to purchase any either.

Does it make more sense now?

If you really can't stomach it, offer to buy the materials yourself with his instructions on where from/what, and store them at your own property til he can do the job. That way he can't run off with your money, and you can't leave him lumbered with materials he no longer needs.

He may not like this, you might fuck up and order the wrong thing or not enough, but sometimes people do it.

They sometimes do this if they can’t get credit on their trade account, not a good sign. Previously I had a tradesman wanting money upfront for materials, I told him I wasn’t comfortable with it. So instead I ordered the materials directly myself (he told me what to order and where from) and that way he had what he needed, and it meant I had the materials if he did do a runner. Worked for both of us.

Do not touch them with a bargepole.

Roofing materials are not made bespoke so there is no reason whatsoever to give them half of £3,000 up front.

How did you come to get a quote off this person? Did a trusted friend give you their number?

We done our house up and always bought materials upfront but we paid for it and delivered to our house so we had the material we paid for. Kinda what they do in our area

We done our house up and always bought materials upfront but we paid for it and delivered to our house so we had the material we paid for. Kinda what they do in our area

I wouldn’t if it’s one/two people, lost 2k that way

I have relatives that are roofers. They had to start charging 50% upfront as they got stung a few times by assholes not paying them. They live rurally and were ripped off by people that drink in same pub as them.
If they didn’t get paid for the job how do you think the materials and wages got paid?

I wouldn't pay anything up front. I had a new roof once and didn't pay in advance. I would just look for another person who was happy for you to pay after the work.

Not the case with my husband. He has excellent lines of credit. As I stated earlier, he was advised to start doing this due to the number of people not paying tradesmen across the country.

People saying about paying materials up front to get round this. This still leaves them out of pocket for labour, etc if the customer doesn't want to pay.

I've given sound advice on signs of a reputable firm. A few years ago the world was a different place and customers paid in a more timely manner. People saying they didn't have this a few years ago, that is probably correct, but things have changed.

No way. We used to pride ourselves on being savvy but actually got fleeced by a con artist last year. We saw him working on a neighbours house and approached him ourselves about a similar job on ours. Really friendly, crossed the road to look at our house and sounding very knowledgeable went into detail about the work needed. He knew i was seriously ill at time and my dh was off work looking after me. He said he needed the money for materials and scaffolding and like fools we sent it to him. Asked for a bit mire, we sent it. The scaffolding was meant to turn up on Monday. It never arrived nor did he. We called his phone number about 50 times, he never answered. Asked the neighbour about him, she said somebody else had recommended him, she had no contact details and it turned out that he hadn't completed the work on her property but she hadn't paid him upfront. The bank luckily reimbursed us. Horrible, horrible man. We are no longer trusting and nobody will ever have money from us upfront ever again.

No never that much upfront

not roof but landscaping. I paid 50% only when they’d done the heavy lifting removal work (prob 70% of job) and all materials delivered to my garden

i do think it must be hard on companies if people don’t pay what they owe

This happened with me once. Asked for 50 percent but I refused (just felt very off in the way it was all handled by them). I agreed to give them a lower sum. They were scammers, did some work and then left and never came back leaving a gaping hole in the roof.

Does the company have much Internet presence and have they given a business address? My scammers didn't which should have been a warning.

Maybe your roofer is okay but my gut instinct told me mine was not.

The only time I paid up front was an electrician I used who was a family friend- he ended up completely ripping me off and then stealing my supplies, he had keys cut to my house which was being renovated and just helped himself. I had to find other electricians to finish the job and it proved difficult as no one likes to complete half finished jobs…so no I would never ever pay up front again.

People saying about paying materials up front to get round this. This still leaves them out of pocket for labour, etc if the customer doesn't want to pay

This is perfectly true, @ByUniqueNavyPoet, but again what's wrong with taking staged payments on a siginficant job, so that if the excuses start the contractor isn't too far out of pocket?

I didn't have to pay my roofers up front

The only times I've ever paid upfront I got ripped off

I would never pay say more than £500 up front

Basically

Do not pay up front

It's also ok to simply say "sorry, no payment until at X stage" etc.

In the past, I've paid for (only) part of the material costs once they've been delivered to my house and I've seen receipts for costs. Then only full remainder paid on 100% completion.

Aim of the game is to always keep yourself in a position that they're losing financially from walking away without completing the job. Nothing else works as otherwise they have no incentive to finish if a shinier job comes along/they can't be bothered/they already have the money so why do the work.

Know there are decent ones out there but there are also too many bad tradespeople out there!