When they go beyond the brief

[sidinz]

How do people handle it when they set instructions for tradespeople, but then they exceed those instructions and land you with a much, much larger bill than you were expecting?

I've just had this with a handyman and a cleaning company I hired to finish off some tidying on my Bookabach property. With what they've charged, I would have been FAR better off to cancel the booking and spend the long weekend doing it myself.

[Don't believe the Hype]

If you didn't authorise work then you have no obligation to pay for it.

Just like the guy at the traffic lights who washes your windscreen then asks for payment. Your payment is not mandatory... they often get upset if you don't pay them but they have no legal standing to make a claim for payment

[Nick G]

I'd negotiate some middle ground based on benefit gained. You doing it yourself doesn't cost $40 - $60 per hour in labour.

[sidinz]

The cleaning company has just sent their bill.
76m2 3-bedroomed house plus some outdoor tidying. $900. No, that's not a typo. $900.

[Bob Kane]

Do you have a breakdown of the work? - how many people did the work and how many hours were they there - how many man/hours involved?
Two people for one day for $900 would mean $56 hr.

[sidinz]

The cleaners reckoned it was 30 hours of labour @ $30 per hour.

The handyman should have been about a day's work: grouting three very small tiled splashbacks, plus putting on three missing tiles, painting the scotia in the bathroom, plus three window surrounds and a door. No painting prep required. The handyman has billed me for 19 hours @ $30 per hour. (Plus the day he spent working beside me which was another nine hours.)

In total they've billed me for 58 hours. I could have done it easily myself over the long weekend.

[Don't believe the Hype]

The cleaning company has just sent their bill.
76m2 3-bedroomed house plus some outdoor tidying. $900. No, that's not a typo. $900.

what was the scope of work you agreed to?

Is it possible they misinterpreted you instructions?

is there written communication between you and the cleaning company?

[Don't believe the Hype]

I'd negotiate some middle ground based on benefit gained. You doing it yourself doesn't cost $40 - $60 per hour in labour.

why negotiate a middle ground?

if I go mow the neighbors lawn while they're on holiday after they asked me to collect their mail then go and bill them $250 for lawn mowing my should they negotiate and offer me $100?

[Nick G]

That's not the right analogy, they were hired to clean and apparently did too much cleaning.

I've got a team ripping through my place right now, they're doing a whole bunch of extra stuff based on what they find. If they had to call me, get approval and then go/no-go nothing would get done and I would be teaching my team not to think outside the square.

Maybe the place needed that much time on it to get to a professional standard. Or by cleaning only the parts you asked the rest looked bad.

If you have a very limited budget for an activity you need to set that out explicitly - "Please spend no more than 15 hours on this job and complete the items in this order, which are a, b, c, call me if you believe this will go over budget". Or, as you said, DIY the bits you can and bring in pro's for the rest.

Look, if you have written instructions somewhere then you can probably dispute it and you might even win.

[donna]

Nice post Nick. I too have been bitten when I haven't given explicit instructions on jobs that needed them when using new people. If I'm using a regular I know I don't need to give the instruction as they already know my standards etc. Anyone new needs more management.

Sidinz, on the plus side I guess the property won't need a huge clean again for awhile.

cheers,

Donna

[drelly]

I've had cleaners try it on like that. An $800 dollar bill for a 40m2 one bed flat that had already been cleaned (but not well enough). I paid them $105 @$35 per hour because I had told three separate people that I only wanted 3 hours cleaning.

[sidinz]

The negotiated regular 'between guests' clean was going to be $35 + $7.50 for each bedroom.
Given it was a first clean and a few extra areas would need doing (but two bedrooms were already made up and only required vaccuuming and a dust down of the windowsill) I figured about double that would do it. Maybe a little more.
Then I asked for them to clean the windows, which should have been 2-3 hours @ $30 per hour and gave them a list of outdoor tasks that should have only been 2 hours, so another $60 or so. There's written evidence of the outdoor tasks.

As for the handyman, I specified what have been about a day's work: grouting three very small tiled splashbacks, plus putting on three missing tiles, painting the scotia in the bathroom, plus three window surrounds and a door. No prep required. Then skim, sand and paint an area of gib approx 50cm X 30cm and connect up a dishwasher. He billed 19 hours for it.

As I had had four hours' sleep that night, doing as much myself as possible as I didn't have the money to pay big hours for someone else to do it, I left some dishes in the sink, knowing that the cleaners were coming in and could throw them in the dishwasher. Not only did he tell me I was a dirty bugger for leaving my dirty dishes, he claimed that he needed a clean space to work in so washed them himself!

[Don't believe the Hype]

The negotiated regular 'between guests' clean was going to be $35 + $7.50 for each bedroom.
Given it was a first clean and a few extra areas would need doing (but two bedrooms were already made up and only required vaccuuming and a dust down of the windowsill) I figured about double that would do it. Maybe a little more.
Then I asked for them to clean the windows, which should have been 2-3 hours @ $30 per hour and gave them a list of outdoor tasks that should have only been 2 hours, so another $60 or so. There's written evidence of the outdoor tasks.

As for the handyman, I specified what have been about a day's work: grouting three very small tiled splashbacks, plus putting on three missing tiles, painting the scotia in the bathroom, plus three window surrounds and a door. No prep required. Then skim, sand and paint an area of gib approx 50cm X 30cm and connect up a dishwasher. He billed 19 hours for it.

As I had had four hours' sleep that night, doing as much myself as possible as I didn't have the money to pay big hours for someone else to do it, I left some dishes in the sink, knowing that the cleaners were coming in and could throw them in the dishwasher. Not only did he tell me I was a dirty bugger for leaving my dirty dishes, he claimed that he needed a clean space to work in so washed them himself!

19 hours? 2.5 days for what a first timer could do in 1day. I think they're taking the P155 - do you want an ongoing relationship with this organization... Based on the info you've put forward I wouldn't.

[ivanp]

Where did you get these cleaners?

Lesson I learnt sometime ago: never ever use cleaners without recommendation of someone you trust. I learned it by paying $600 for cleaning a 3-bdrm 90m2 house, situation was similar to your's except i had no handyman.

[Viking]

$30.00 an hour doesn't buy a whole lot of effort and energy these days.
Well done cleaning is a hard days work which you should know if you have done a lot of cleaning.

So, I would rather pay someone a higher rate and know they work their buts off than hire the useless who swing the lead and overcharge you.

Of course you can always get a price first.