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https://www.askthetrades.co.uk/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl DIY Forum >> Electrical Questions >> Late finish of house re-wiring job https://www.askthetrades.co.uk/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1484175778 Message started by Gammy_leg on Jan 11^th, 2017, 11:02pm

Title: Late finish of house re-wiring job
Post by Gammy_leg on Jan 11^th, 2017, 11:02pm

Hi,

I took on a sparky to re-wire my 3 bed semi. He is a mate of my son who has not long finished his training. He quoted what is the going rate for this area but wanted paying in cash :-/ and the job was going to take 3 weeks and it would all get signed off as Part P compliant.

Agreed to the quote, the request for cash and the timeframe. The main proviso was that it was finished for Christmas, and that didn't mean 5pm on Christmas eve!!

Started on 3rd Nov and 10 weeks later and he's still not finished. Much of November and all of December he went missing, and it turned out he was finishing off another big night job in London.

Lots of apologies and a promise to get it sorted asap straight after the new year but appearances have been sporadic at best.

Currently still have no outlet power upstairs ( since Nov ), no lighting in the kitchen and no working sockets in the living room.
So far I've given him 50% of the price for the job.

As you are all trades guys and if you had performed as badly as this chap ( not that you would I'm sure ) would you begrudge the client ( ie me ) holding back some money from the final bill as compensation for all the aggro and late delivery, and if not, how much would be reasonable?

Gammy

Title: Re: Late finish of house re-wiring job
Post by londonman on Jan 12^th, 2017, 2:34pm

Make sure you get your certificate first before you say anything about final payment. I'd be inclined to delay the final payment for double the length of time he has kept you waiting.

Or deduct 20% which is the amount of Income Tax he's not paying but should be :o

Title: Re: Late finish of house re-wiring job
Post by Natedog on Jan 12^th, 2017, 6:33pm

i'd give him the final payment as a cheque, but only once i was holding the ticket to say it's been done properly and if i was in a really bad mood when writing it out i'd put a date sometime in the next few months

note: i'm not in one of the trades covered by this forum, i'm just a keen amateur s**t stirrer

Title: Re: Late finish of house re-wiring job
Post by Gammy_leg on Jan 14^th, 2017, 10:33am

Well he managed a full 2 days this week. Didn't come in yesterday, probably because of the snow. Oddly I still managed to drive 60 miles to and from work without too much trouble.

This special little snowflake is a Millennial which I think has a big bearing on the situation. The job obviously doesn't offer enough scope for him to "make a difference"

Title: Re: Late finish of house re-wiring job
Post by scotspark on Jan 16^th, 2017, 8:13pm

So he wanted the going rate but wanted paying cash and then f***s you about for 3 month.

Should have got a firm in🤐