Driveway contractor not holding up contract - what to do

circadian

Hi all,

We have a a company out to do work on our driveway. Some of the work involves moving the wall back and moving the wall pillar with it.

The boss man has just said that they'd move the pillar if they can but they won't rebuild it if they can't just lift it and move it. The thing is it's in the contract that the pillar would be moved to the new position and this was the reason we chose them to do the work as other contractors were charging extra for this part of the work.

At the time of the quote and signing the contract it was agreed that the pillar would be moved. Not once did they stipulate that they'd only do it if they could move it, nothing was said about possibly rebuilding if it couldn't be moved straight across.

Any ideas how to approach if they end up not moving/rebuilding the pillar as agreed?

Lumen

"just lift it and move it"?

Are they proposing to do this with a freestanding garden wall? This seems like a terrible idea. What about foundations? What's it made of?

the_pen_turner

it probably can be done. but its a stupid idea.
I wouldn't be worried about moving it , that's the easy part. id be more worried about if they are going to make it safe and solid again and not damage it.

surely its cheaper to rebuild it

circadian

Thanks folks. It's a solid pillar (not hollow in the middle) so they just lifted it and created a small foundation/cemented it into the new position and against the remainder of the wall as agreed.

However, we're having issues over payment. We were asked about halfway through the job yesterday for cash to pay the cement contractor. Now they want payment in full in cash (never mentioned when being quoted or signing the contract prior to work). We requested an invoice as we wish to apply for the HRI scheme for this work.

The business owners have been nothing short of rude to my wife who is at home on mat leave at the minute. We've been told that we'd get the VAT invoice but obviously the business relationship to this point hasn't been great and doesn't fill us with confidence. Upon requesting the invoice we were told that we'd have to pay VAT on top of the quote (which IIRC isn't the case for a private client as VAT is included in the quote unless otherwise stated) and my wife accused of being a scammer.

I'm just venting at this point and will see how this plays out.

Dardania

circadian wrote: »

Thanks folks. It's a solid pillar (not hollow in the middle) so they just lifted it and created a small foundation/cemented it into the new position and against the remainder of the wall as agreed.

However, we're having issues over payment. We were asked about halfway through the job yesterday for cash to pay the cement contractor. Now they want payment in full in cash (never mentioned when being quoted or signing the contract prior to work). We requested an invoice as we wish to apply for the HRI scheme for this work.

The business owners have been nothing short of rude to my wife who is at home on mat leave at the minute. We've been told that we'd get the VAT invoice but obviously the business relationship to this point hasn't been great and doesn't fill us with confidence. Upon requesting the invoice we were told that we'd have to pay VAT on top of the quote (which IIRC isn't the case for a private client as VAT is included in the quote unless otherwise stated) and my wife accused of being a scammer.

I'm just venting at this point and will see how this plays out.

Sounds like you have a belligerent prick of a contractor. Congrats! The majority who give the minority a bad name...
Although to be fair, did you calrify what the method of payment would be prior to works?
With respect to VAT being deemed included, by the letter of the law you're correct, however a lot of contractors are genuinely unaware of this. You'd be as well to try get the work done before tackling this issue, seeing as it wasn't clearly resolved pre construction.

With respect to HRI, it's not sufficient to apply later with a VAT invoice in hand - it needs to be logged by the contractor. And my suggestion is not to pay anything until you see it on HRI's website. See: https://www.revenue.ie/en/property/home-renovation-incentive/hri-for-homeowners-and-landlords/choosing-a-hri-contractor.aspx

circadian

And now their website has disappeared off the face of the earth. Well, almost. Google still shows it as the top result but there's no DNS entry for it. The google reviews for the company are by the company owner and facebook reviews are also dubious.

circadian

Dardania wrote: »

Sounds like you have a belligerent prick of a contractor. Congrats! The majority who give the minority a bad name...
Although to be fair, did you calrify what the method of payment would be prior to works?
With respect to VAT being deemed included, by the letter of the law you're correct, however a lot of contractors are genuinely unaware of this. You'd be as well to try get the work done before tackling this issue, seeing as it wasn't clearly resolved pre construction.

With respect to HRI, it's not sufficient to apply later with a VAT invoice in hand - it needs to be logged by the contractor. And my suggestion is not to pay anything until you see it on HRI's website. See: https://www.revenue.ie/en/property/home-renovation-incentive/hri-for-homeowners-and-landlords/choosing-a-hri-contractor.aspx

Thanks. Yes it was confirmed beforehand that they are HRI registered and that was one of the deciding factors to go with them. I suspect now that they aren't registered and the chances of us claiming anything back is zero.