Last week we cut ties with our builder Thomas Motzer. We had pretty much exhausted our budget so it seemed a good time to part ways. Unfortunately the parting was acrimonious. I won’t go into details but both parties disagreed over the final bills. We only wanted what we thought we had paid for and I’m sure Thomas thought the same.
This was a big lesson learnt for us and I can recommend the following tips for anyone entering similar ventures.
- Get everything written down and signed – I know this seems obvious but it’s easy to assume the best in people. As an example both Aimee and I are pretty sure that when discussing repairing/replacing the roof that the soffit/ceiling above the rear upper balcony would be fixed. Well it wasn’t. I spoke to some knowledgeable people about this and it seems a bit of a grey area, it could be classed as soffit or it could be a ceiling. So in summary I would record any conversations with contractors and make sure that all expectations are listed out and signed for. By the way this isn’t the only work which we expected to be done that wasn’t – there’s a list
- I would recommend compartmentalizing any large project into smaller individual projects and when each project is completed get it signed off complete with costs. What we experienced was that at the eleventh hour (and pretty much the eleventh minute) we were charged for work/materials for projects that happened months ago [spfx: fish smell] and these were costs that we were previously unaware of.
- Be your own boss. In future we will not be hiring general contractors and instead we will hire specialists for each task.
Dealing with Thomas over the last few weeks has been pretty stressful with threats of a Mechanic/Material lien being put on the house. We were prepared to fight but after talking to our lawyer, paying up seemed the easiest, though it was a bitter pill to swallow.
We’re on our own now, but the both of us feel a little relieved.