Invoice higher than quote

[ThinkingAboutSchemes]

Hi
We had some work done on our bathroom & the invoice is £1,600 whereas his original quote was £900 & materials. We know the guy did a couple of extra jobs that we asked him to & we obviously will pay for his additional time which equals £200 & he paid £100 for materials. But what about the remaining £400? We've asked him to provide a breakdwown of his costs & copies of bills for materials he incurred on our behalf.

Isn't a quote a fixed price & an estimate a guesstimate?

Thanks

I guess wait to see what he comes back with. I agree that a quote is fixed (assuming it was written down) but it's a bit tough if he did extra bits on your request and those weren't in the quote. I think the best place to start though is with what you've done - ask why the bill is higher than the quote given and for a breakdown of costs. If it still seems unreasonable then you say you don't intend to pay over x and see what he comes back with.

We recently had some work done to the front of the house and were given a formal quote and then once work was underway had some add-ons. The final invoice had the add-ons priced over the odds and we queried it saying it doesn't make sense that X is X amount and the firm dropped the price to what we thought was reasonable. I think initially they were trying to make up some of the costs of some mistakes they had made along the way.

Thanks SparkyUK for your reply. We received the breakdown & it seems the job took him 2.5 days longer than he quoted for. TBH we thought he was very slow doing the job & were not impressed with this job finish as he is usually very good. We have paid him £1,200 (which is £900 quote plus £100 materials plus £200 for the additional work he carried out for us). We do not believe we should have to pay him anymore as we do not think he had his mind on the job & he was forever popping out to get this that & the other rather than forward thinking. Is that fair?
Thanks

How did you agree to price the job? Did you do it on time and materials, or on a fixed price? It sounds like you think it was fixed price, and he thought it was time and materials. Can you go back and look at your initial contract / quote?

FWIW, we're currently having work done, and doing it on time and materials, but with the carpenter letting me know everything that he's doing before he does it. He keeps apologising for it taking longer than planned, with me saying 'there's 4 times as much to be fixed as we planned, of course it costs more'.

We asked him for a quote, which he provided "quote for bathroom....£900"

Mind you, when he provided the breakdown yesterday he has now worded it as "original estimate £900". Mmm think he may be trying to get out of the quote but we have the quote with QUOTE written on it.

Thanks

Sounds to me like he's taking the piss. If it says quote for bathroom with a total sum, then IMO it really isn't your problem if it took longer than he thought it would.

Make sure you remind him the quote was for job completed. You weren't paying him by the hour or day so he can't just add on 2.5 extra days.

Thanks all. We haven't gone back to him yet but will most certainly remind him he gave us a quote not an estimate