Why is it that the customer/tradesmen relationship often goes wrong?
Don't get me wrong, I've been a self employed electrician for 20 years and all my jobs get to a happy conclusion. I've just finished wiring a new build house near Rochester. The Plumber was sacked and the decorator will never work for these people again. The Plumber took money up front and then took too long, forever disappearing to do lucrative call out work. The decorator just did a bad job, lines in the paintwork, didn't paint the tops of the doors and didn't rub down the plasterboard joints properly leaving unsightly lines.
Is this the fault of the tradesmen or the customer?.......Its both!
When employing Tradesmen you should always get a detailed quote which includes a list of the work to be done and a loose time frame for doing it - no job ever goes entirely to plan.
Work out a schedule of part payments, I typically want one third after the end of the first day, another halfway through and the rest at the end. In this way I'm protected from dodgy customers (they do exist) and my customer knows that I must keep up a good standard of work to get the payments.
The last payment is called snagging money. At the end of the job you walk around and if anything is not right you withold payment until its corrected. You must be reasonable though, you can't suddenly insist on a change of paint colour or an extra light at the end of the job. You can however make variations to the work as you go along but a separate price for the 'extras' should be negotiated. You should also expect to still pay for any completed work which must now be undone as a result - get your variations in early!
In my experience this simple procedure stops an awful lot of grief.