To not expect to pay

[Gilesmummy]

We moved into a new house which needed lots of work. I got a quote for repainting my kitchen cabinets and my friend said we can help we won’t charge anywhere near that. It was said with humour so I assumed they meant they would help as friends. The husband has been doing the cupboards over a period of four months. It’s not a huge kitchen he has just taken forever.
We let him get on and didn’t push him as we thought he was doing it to be nice.
He has made a dreadful job, so as they’ve come back I’ve redone them myself and not said anything.
now today the wife,my friend, has told me she will be bringing the invoice over on Tuesday
We never really discussed payment (how much or if they were charging ) it never occurred to me that a friend would charge.( He is a retired 80 year old joiner ) Often we’d said add it to the invoice jokingly and my husband has said to them we will take you out for a meal to say thank you. if I was paying I’d have wanted it done properly and sooner. It still not finished and I was planning to redo it all myself and not tell them how bad a job it was.
am I being unreasonable in not expecting to pay and how do I deal with it?

Misunderstanding, but you're gonna have to pay. Brace yourselves for what to do if/when it's an absurdly high price.

And if he was going a shit job you should have stopped him

So. Many. Mistakes. 🤦‍♀️

I would not have assumed, free. You should have clarified if they were joking or really wanted the job.

You def should not have accepted the poor work.

What I would do now is message,
Look, we really misunderstood. Our fault entirely.
We thought you were doing a favour, at your leisure over all these months, not a job for pay.
We have re-painted the cupboards because they were not done well. We didn't tell you because we thought you were doing it for free. Again, our fault.

We will gladly pay for your materials' costs. Please provide the receipts. We still want to take you for a meal to thank you for your kindness.

You might be losing this friendship, though.

If he’s done a bad job then I would be expecting him to correct it before paying a penny!

So you’ve acknowledged several times you expect to pay… why on earth would he have done it for free? He’s a retired 80 year old trying to make a bit of extra cash and with his age it’s not surprising it was slow. You chose not to say anything about the speed and quality…

Exactly this. Which bit of we'll do it for less made you assume they'd be doing it for free as your friends.

Also, if you genuinely thought you were being done a favour free of charge, why on earth would you continue to let an elderly friend come and waste hours of his unpaid time, doing something that you weren’t happy with and were repainting after he left? If you weren’t happy with the work then surely you’d just say after the first couple of visits “change of plan James, no need for you to do any more, DH and I had a sudden burst of energy and decided to blitz it all ourselves last weekend”?

If they said ‘we won’t charge you anywhere near that’ I’d have read that as they ‘will charge you, but it’ll be cheaper’

In addition to everything already said, if you’re being truthful and it was so bad that you had to re do every single thing he painted why did you not stop him after the first or second door?
Why would you let him waste his time doing a job he (if what you’re saying is true) clearly could not do to the standard you wanted/needed and again (if what you’re saying is true) why would you have needed him, or anyone, to do it anyway if you had the skill set and time to be able to not just do it but also correct a botched job?

Or are you exaggerating this a bit in your own head because you’re annoyed at them expecting payment while treating it more like a hobby over the last few months?

Four months to paint kitchen cupboards? That sounds so frustrating.

Are you sure they’re not joking? Could the invoice be “two pints and a bottle of Prosecco”?

You said you frequently said ‘add it to the invoice’…

You've got yourself into a pickle here, but from what you say it’s all your own fault. 🤷🏼‍♀️

They didn't say free they Said cheaper if the Job was shoddy you have definitely have spoken up and said sorry X this is not the quality I was expecting let's stop the work
Instead you said nothing and now in this position

This

I had to reread this several times to make sure…I’m sorry - it took 4 months to paint some kitchen cabinets? What the actual

Oh gosh, how awkward. I think neither of you are being unreasonable and it’s been crossed wires-the issue is he’s done a crap job and acted quite unprofessionally. The boundaries have been blurred. I suppose my response would depend on how much he’s trying to charge you.

Take pictures of their uncompleted, crappy job.

Isn’t it going to cost you to rectify his work
with new materials? He should be paying you.

I’m surprised you thought he was working for free.

Get pictures of his shit job.
Subtract the costvof every lunch.
Throw him a few quid and never have anything further to do with them.

Someone has spent 4 MONTHS working on your house & you don’t expect to pay? Are you serious?!

So he was painting a door and when he was finished you were stripping it down and repainting it? Over and over again?

I think, hard to have a firm opinion on what to do until you’ve got the quote.

This. You need to pay the invoice that’s a lot of labour and material.

If he's doing such a bad job and he's still not finished, can you ask him to stop? If he is going to charge you, you don't really want to be running the cost up anymore.