ᐅ Plastering company does not dispose of the waste – should I sue the company?

So, now about the tradespeople at my site. The plastering company, which finished a while ago, has now sent the final invoice. Invoices always go through the architect first, who reviews them and then forwards them to me. However, the plastering company has left a lot of debris behind. The architect has been in contact, both verbally and in writing, with the head of the plastering company for some time, insisting that they clean up the debris before the final payment is made, and has even sent excerpts from the contract conditions (VOB) showing that this is their responsibility. The company refuses to do so. The architect has now suggested deducting a flat fee from the final invoice to cover the cost of disposal by an external company and has informed the plastering company accordingly. Their response was:

Good day,
we are prepared to take this to court as we have already been through a lot, for example:
- additional discount even though our prices were good
- we couldn’t work on the site continuously and therefore had problems with other projects
- we disposed of most of the construction debris ourselves!
Anyway, do what you think is right and we will react accordingly.

It’s a pity you probably think we are a bad company now, but put yourself in our position. We made almost no profit on this site because we kept our prices low.
It was the first project we did together. If we do another one, this won’t happen again because we will make sure.

Great. Are they just bluffing or what do you think? I really don’t want to spend money on lawyers over this nonsense. What would you do?
By the way, it was never agreed that the site would be completed all at once.

I would proceed as the architect suggested.
Pay the outstanding amount. Draft a letter mentioning the retention of payment and set a deadline for waste removal within 5 working days. The remaining payment will then be made. Announce that the remaining waste will be disposed of externally if the deadline is missed.
Refer to previous phone calls between the architect and the company. "As already stated in the letter dated..., it is your contractual obligation to remove the waste... etc."

If they want the outstanding amount, they will have to take legal action. I would definitely be prepared to let it come to that.

The tiler does not receive full payment for half the work done either.

I would do the same. I find the reasoning quite odd (apart from the wording): "We miscalculated in the offer, so we decided to reduce the service afterward." Next time, I’ll try it the other way around. I’ll only pay part of the price because I realized afterward that I can’t afford the originally agreed amount.

We’re currently facing a similar situation. We requested a quote from a company in July, and in August our architect gave the contract (in writing). Now the company suddenly wants several thousand euros more. Apparently, the original quote was far too low.
Your advantage is that at least the work on your side has progressed and other trades can continue.
I also don’t understand how a professional can allow this to happen.

If I were you, I would stand firm. You are in the right. What could happen?
He’s the one trying to get money from you. It would be a different story if it were the other way around.

If the VOB was certainly the basis for this contract and it clearly states without any room for interpretation that they are required to do this, then I consider setting a deadline followed by a substitute performance with offsetting to be appropriate.

However, legal advice does no harm, even if you do not intend to take legal action.

avalanche schrieb:
I also don’t understand how a professional can afford to do something like this.

I don’t understand either, but in this case I also include the architect: why did they hire someone they didn’t know yet?

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11ant schrieb:
I don’t either, but I do include the architect in this: why did they choose someone they didn’t know yet?

Here in southern Lower Saxony, you can consider yourself lucky if someone is willing to take on a project. At the moment, most companies are well booked. If I only include companies in the tender that I have experience with, it quickly leads to rejection.
So, even without a real choice, there are enough challenges :-)