Cowboy customers.

[bendylow]

I think ITV had a brain f*rt this evening.
Having just watched cowboy customers,think itv could have left out the part concerning the law with regards to ownership of materials when customers haven't coughed up for services rendered (basically it says you can't remove materials once they are attached to a property without the landowners permission),
like they need any more ammuntion.How's the saying go"the customer is king",now they're going to think they are godlike.
I just hope a customer of mine from about a month back hasn't seen it,i threatened to undo all my work and remove materials if payment hasn't been made by saturday,it wasn't a big job and i could suffer the loss without too much pain,but it's not the point,they are totally happy with the job,they just won't pay up,it's just excuse after excuse,they are plausible and could be genuine,they didn't seem to me to be the chiseling type.
Maybe it's just me being paraniod(but then again,i know everyone's out to get me).But seriously,do the good folk on here get much of this kind of trouble,i have to say this is the first time in a long time it's happened to me,or come saturday maybe it hasn't,we will see.


Sorry,i won't be able to respond until the weekend,working away till friday night. And thats another thing i would like your thoughts on but i,ll explain in another post when i get back, ttfn.

 

[mattylad]

So how does contract law interact with that?

Because I'm sure most will have the line about "materials remain the property of xxxxxxx until paid for in full".

So they may belong to the house but they are also his bricks etc.

 

[Stivino]

Just because the materials belong to you doesn't mean you can just go and take them back. You might have ownership but the other person has possession which we all know is 9/10th's of the law.

 

[Johnmelad502]

Having just watched the program, it would appear that the law is not on the side of the small business.

I have been stung twice by cowboy customers, luckily for me they were both small jobs and I have had to write the money off.

It would have cost me as much as was owed to take them through the County Courts with absolutely no chance of getting the money back anyway.

The law needs to change and soon.

 

[PrenticeBoyofDerry]

The law stinks, if you have not paid for goods or labour. It should not belong to you. I'm not in to going about removing materials or destructing them but I also don't think it is right that someone can enjoy the use of something they have not paid or laboured for.
It seems that law, always leans towards the ones that have been responsible for a wrong doing, rather than the ones that have been wronged.

 

[dpsservices]

i always ask the customer for material money up front may seem bad practice but at least then if i was to get stung all i have lost is time

 

[PrenticeBoyofDerry]

I also try to, if it's someone I have not done work for before. But it's a rock and hard place a lot of mistrust. justifiably in some cases, that the workmans gona do one with the cash.

 

[Johnmelad502]

When I quote now, I have it agreed that the customer will pay me for materials on the day I start, I charge for what is on the receipt, plus delivery costs if any material has a delivery charge.

Anything over £50, I ask for the money up-front.

 

[clf-gas]

i always ask the customer for material money up front may seem bad practice but at least then if i was to get stung all i have lost is time

Thats the way I do it now and have been for a few years now, if custard dont agree I walk and lose nothing.

As you say my time I can stand but fitting a new heating system and fancy bathrooms at my expence, no chance

 

[ColJack]

as a customer I wouldn't mind paying materials up front as long as said materials were sent direct to my property and remained there.. that includes any left over materials...

 

[noseall]

as a customer I wouldn't mind paying materials up front as long as said materials were sent direct to my property and remained there.. that includes any left over materials...

...and if the builder was working to a price, and the builder wanted to buy more bricks than was necessary so that he could take the remainder to another job, because buying them now would save a few bob?

So long as the materials are included in the quote then you have no right to what is left as the builder can buy as great a quantity as he wishes within the quote parameter.

If he is working on day rate (labour only) then you may have claim to any over ordered mat's.

 

[Johnmelad502]

If he is working on day rate (labour only) then you may have claim to any over ordered mat's.

Did anyone say differently?

 

[ColJack]

if I pay him for a pallet of bricks and he only uses 450 out of the 516 on the pallet, then those are my bricks..
if I pay him for 200 bricks and orders extra for another job then as long as I only paid for the 200 then the rest are his..
if I pay for a roll of felt and he only uses half, then the rest is mine..

 

[Donkmeister]

Right, so you can't go and remove what you've fitted...

But what if you accidentally dropped a hammer on the expensive Belfast sink they've neglected to pay you for, or slipped with a chisel and went through the front plate of the CU you've just installed for them (after accidentally knocking the inline isolator to the OFF position)...

Just so long as you are invited in, don't threaten anyone, endanger anyone and leave the materials where they fell, is that OK? What about throwing some "WARNING" tape all over the mess you create?

Or could they sue you if they then re-energise the consumer unit/tread on porceilain fragments and injure themselves?

 

[noseall]

if I pay him for a pallet of bricks and he only uses 450 out of the 516 on the pallet, then those are my bricks..
if I pay him for 200 bricks and orders extra for another job then as long as I only paid for the 200 then the rest are his..
if I pay for a roll of felt and he only uses half, then the rest is mine..

Quite so.

The point i was making was the differentiation betwixt a price/contract and a day rate job.

On a fixed price, the amount of materials the builder buys within that fixed price are irrelevant, whether he buys 10 bricks or 10,000. You have no claim to any surplus materials so long as he sticks to his contracted price and that the terms of the contract have not changed.