To have called out my gardener

[Whenindoubthugitout]

I have had a gardener this year. I have been really pleased and happy with the work he has done.

I asked him to reseed my lawn. Which he agreed to do.
The price he quoted was for 2.5 days work.

he reseeded it within a day, and I asked if the price would be reduced to reflect that it hasn’t taken him as long.

he said that - whilst it was reduced slightly - he would come out and water it daily for me whilst we were away, and that this was reflected in the pricing - which was fine.

we have been away all week, and he sent me a text this morning telling me I was due him the full amount.

however - I have a ring doorbell - and he hasn’t been out all week. (Tbf - it’s rained every day)

I called him out, and said I was unhappy to be paying for a job he hasn’t carried out.

he has now backtracked and said - oh yeah - but I plan to do three more trips (cynically I don’t believe him) and that he just didn’t want to bother me on holiday.

Aibu -to think he is trying it on -and the extra 3 trips are now because I called him out. And if he had initially intended to do these - he would have said so upfront……

I feel really sad. And let down
and slightly stupid for trusting someone to do something whilst I wasn’t there.

lol ar some of the assumptions made

he has always been paid for all of his work.
he has never done work I haven’t asked for.

i paid £250 first thing this morning
and then said - do the last three visits and I will pay you the final £250.
but - he lied and said he had completed the job. Which he hadn’t.

i then posted here, and got my arse handed to me for a few hours.

so I paid the remaining money.

whether he now does the rest of the job is up to him:

But I would appreciate you getting the actual facts right.

Yikes. You are completely misinterpreting my tone. 😢
Your sharpness toward me is off mark.

That's totally fair enough.
I guess he didn't explicitly lie that he'd been round while you were away, but it was implied when he demanded full payment. I'm pretty sure he only said that about the planned visits when you questioned his absence.

Hopefully you can just offer him some more work and he won't get weird about you refusing paying for things that didn't happen. He should want to keep a decent client.

You accused me of accepting work that wasn’t paid for?
really - where did I ever say that.
I have paid well, on time and for everything that has ever been done.

im not being sharp - I am being hurt.
I have paid the money
i have lost the gardener
i feel really flipping hurt by the whole bloody thing.

but I didn’t mean or intend to be sharp.

It's tricky OP. I had something similar and I think it was partly down to crossed wires and partly down to him trying it on. I paid the full price, but I (politely) made it clear that I was unhappy. They backpedalled immediately but the trust was gone so I insisted on paying full price and I silently said to myself I'm not booking them again.

This is why I stopped landscape gardening. People don't value the work and skill that goes into it.
You agreed a price, it was reduced for you and work was carried out. Now you are quibbling. How would you feel if someone contracted you then did the same?

Read the thread
i am not going over it again.
he has his money

but he has also lost my ongoing custom for years to come.

I think I conflated different threads. 🙄

Lawn seed is £8…. Why would you pay £500 for the lawn to be mowed, raked and seeded?

I know that now, but I trusted him.

I pay him only for the hours he worked.

Did you often quote for work and then not do it, then ask for full payment knowing you hadn't done everything you said you would?

If he had said 'I haven't actually been back to water it yet because of all the rain we've had but I can book you in for x y and z date, would you mind settling up now?' I'd be on his side.

But instead he sent her a payment reminder and kept quiet about the visits, then backtracked as she flustered him when she caught him out.

I did read it, and trust me, its not something a gardener or tradesperson would loose sleep over.

Given that most people take at least three weeks to pay for jobs, even when they've signed a contract with you, and have to be sent consant reminders to pay them - yes. You'd book them in and you couldn't do the work because of locked gates, trampolines etc. on lawns kid's toys, washing out or dog faeces all over the lawns yes, I'd very often contract for work and couldn't do it. And as I'm paid for my time, the customer has agreed to a contract so they are expected to pay.

Yes exactly. He said material was £250 and labour one day £250.

He’s not including pre prep or aftercare/ any guarantees with that though. If so you could get up to £500 +£250 materials easily.

Which I agree is a ridiculous price to pay for lawn. DP did advise client to have a go doing it themselves first and see how they get on. It wasnt in that bad nick with regard compaction or thatching. Just needed a bit of wetting agent really and a light scarify.

And premium seed is not £8! The brands we use can be £100-£250 a bag.

Professional topdress isn’t cheap and you have to courier crate delivery.

Professional lawn treatments also a bomb. You are laying down easily £100 on wetting agent if granular and more if liquid although you can use that on multiple gardens.

Thats not including any machinery/ fertilisation/ herbicides and the associated PPE.

If you want a professional golf green lawn it’s bloody expensive. Which is why our home lawn is well ‘homely’ 😂

but it's money you budgeted for and greed on. It's just taken him less time.

the customer has agreed to a contract so they are expected to pay.

Depends what the contract is. If the contract is for set days and you can't do it because of client error then yes you are entitled to be paid. If the reason you couldn't do those dates was not the client's fault then the contract is discharged and you need to negotiate a fair and reduced price for booking out your time. Quantum meruit is based on value to the client, not trader output or effort or intention.

In this case, Ops contract was for three visits. Not 3 visits on dates a b and c. He still hasn't performed those visits and the contract was still live so he's either on the hook to perform or reduce the price.

In an unrelated industry I've been reading up on pivotal case law about this exact thing from last year. Upshot is book in specific days as part of the contract and in the event you can't perform let the client know and vary the contract for new dates. You can't just expect full payment automatically anymore, especially if the vague day you 'intended' to do it didn't go ahead because of rain that you, as a gardener, probably knew about.

This happened with a landscaper recently here. Quoted, two people two weeks, did it alone in eleven days. His daily rate worked out at £568 😡
He then said at the end his quote didn’t include relaying the turf. When laying it, he hadn’t even levelled it properly 😡

If your agreement is that he is paid by the hour for any work done, then no, you only have to pay him for the hours he has worked.
If he gave a “price” for the job and did it quicker then you have to pay the agreed price, however, if that price has included for works that were not actually carried out, I.e additional trips to water, then you are entitled to deduct that from the final bill.

This is irrelevant and nonsensical since we don't know how big the OPs garden is and if there were 2 of you that equates to 1 day for 1 person!

Just pay the guy! You've hired a gardener so why are you micromanaging him?

He must know you have a ring doorbell. If you have been happy with his work and want him to continue doing a good job, be a decent person and give him the benefit of the doubt - before he starts peeing on your borders 😂

Ok, so my husband is a gardener. He quoted you a job rate, not an hourly rate. You pay for the job of having your lawn re-seeded. He isn’t God, he didn’t know when he quoted that it would rain, so he was anticipating having to come and water it in. Remember there is also pre-prep such as working out how much grass seed is needed per square metre. It’s not just the time spent there on the day. As mentioned above he will also need to check the lawn in the coming weeks and re-seed the patches that haven’t taken. So the job rate covers all eventualities. I would just pay him and move on, if you usually have a good relationship with him. Good, reliable gardeners are really hard to find!

But he probably put aside the time to do it and then it rained so he didn’t have to. It would have been absolutely absurd for him to have come out and watered your lawn on a rainy day but he might very well not have booked other work on those days in anticipation of it not raining and your lawn requiring a water. YABVU

Reseeding is a process! He's the professional gardener, you are clearly not. Grass seeding takes TIME. Not only to spread them but to germinate, they don't instantly sprout the moment they're laid. You may not see the results until next Spring depending on the weather.

Your approach is immature and if I was your gardener, I would not be coming back. Do you always nag people like this?

The watering would be unecessary when it's raining - rain is great - it's a gentle start for the seeds. Overwatering would make the seeds 'pond'. The watering phase will be required on a week like this, where it's sunny and the ground is drying, to ensure the seeds are setting and can germinate. Once they do start to germinate there will be patches where the seed has moved, blown away or been eaten. So these will need further attention. It's an ongoing process that takes TIME. Your gardener has clearly made a wrong assumption that you would understand that.