ᐅ Is the construction company required to provide a detailed cost breakdown for each trade?
Created on: 6 Feb 2020 16:44
S
Schurik19855
Hello everyone,
We are soon building a townhouse measuring 10m x 10m (33 ft x 33 ft) with a single-story bay window at the back measuring 4m x 1m (13 ft x 3 ft). However, the upper floor remains 10m x 10m (33 ft x 33 ft) without the bay window. Now we have extended the bay window down to the lower edge of the house by 6 meters (20 ft). This means the walls on the upper floor no longer align with the walls on the lower floor. This added 2.9 m² (31 sq ft) of living space, and the builder is charging an additional 11,800 EUR. That is about 4,000 EUR/m² (370 USD/sq ft). The roof of the bay window is not even included in this cost.
This does not seem normal, does it? Of course, it affects many trades, but the total cost shouldn’t be this high. The major expenses are coming from the foundation slab, screed, and reinforced concrete floor to the upper floor (which needs to be made stronger). Is the builder trying to overcharge me? He has tried this a few times before, but I was always able to prove that this was not the case, which he eventually admitted.
Attached are the plans before and after.
Do I have the right to request the builder to provide a breakdown of costs for each trade if I ask for it?
Thanks in advance for your feedback!
Best regards
We are soon building a townhouse measuring 10m x 10m (33 ft x 33 ft) with a single-story bay window at the back measuring 4m x 1m (13 ft x 3 ft). However, the upper floor remains 10m x 10m (33 ft x 33 ft) without the bay window. Now we have extended the bay window down to the lower edge of the house by 6 meters (20 ft). This means the walls on the upper floor no longer align with the walls on the lower floor. This added 2.9 m² (31 sq ft) of living space, and the builder is charging an additional 11,800 EUR. That is about 4,000 EUR/m² (370 USD/sq ft). The roof of the bay window is not even included in this cost.
This does not seem normal, does it? Of course, it affects many trades, but the total cost shouldn’t be this high. The major expenses are coming from the foundation slab, screed, and reinforced concrete floor to the upper floor (which needs to be made stronger). Is the builder trying to overcharge me? He has tried this a few times before, but I was always able to prove that this was not the case, which he eventually admitted.
Attached are the plans before and after.
Do I have the right to request the builder to provide a breakdown of costs for each trade if I ask for it?
Thanks in advance for your feedback!
Best regards
H
HilfeHilfe6 Feb 2020 17:38In hindsight, you are always in a worse position. Perhaps your house was priced too low before (?) and now a surcharge is being added. We don’t know.
Hello,
with this change, you’ve opened a pretty big can of worms, probably without realizing it:
So this will be quite expensive living space, which you won’t get for the normal 2000 €/m² (about $186 per sq ft). Around 3000 €/m² ($280 per sq ft) is definitely appropriate; whether it really needs to be 4000 €/m² ($372 per sq ft) is another question.
But: you’ve probably already signed the contract, so now you’re at the general contractor’s mercy. For what reason would they do this work at cost price for you?
Unfortunately, you have only one option: take it or leave it!
That’s just how it is in project business; the original contract has to be tightly calculated, and the money is made with change orders.
What you can do is politely ask them to explain where the additional costs are coming from. If they’re smart, they’ll do that in a way that makes you feel you’re not being taken advantage of. Then you’ll be reassured and ready to put another 12,000 € on the table for the next change...
Best regards and good luck,
Andreas
with this change, you’ve opened a pretty big can of worms, probably without realizing it:
- The house will become structurally much more complex. Since the walls on the upper floor are now 1 meter (3 feet) away from the walls on the ground floor, you will probably need concrete columns in the corners of the bay window and a significantly thicker ground floor slab. We have a similar structure; our ground floor slab is a slim 28 cm (11 inches), made of concrete only! That already involves a lot of material. I didn’t realize this before either, but it would probably have been much cheaper to extend the bay window to the upper floor so that all external walls align again.
- The roof over the bay window is now twice as large and therefore twice as expensive.
- You write “building soon.” If the execution plans are already finished, that means a lot of plans need to be changed and redistributed. Just that can quickly cost a few thousand dollars (or euros) in labor.
So this will be quite expensive living space, which you won’t get for the normal 2000 €/m² (about $186 per sq ft). Around 3000 €/m² ($280 per sq ft) is definitely appropriate; whether it really needs to be 4000 €/m² ($372 per sq ft) is another question.
But: you’ve probably already signed the contract, so now you’re at the general contractor’s mercy. For what reason would they do this work at cost price for you?
Unfortunately, you have only one option: take it or leave it!
That’s just how it is in project business; the original contract has to be tightly calculated, and the money is made with change orders.
What you can do is politely ask them to explain where the additional costs are coming from. If they’re smart, they’ll do that in a way that makes you feel you’re not being taken advantage of. Then you’ll be reassured and ready to put another 12,000 € on the table for the next change...
Best regards and good luck,
Andreas
S
Schurik198556 Feb 2020 22:00Hello everyone,
Thanks in advance for your replies.
I was already aware that the foundation slab and ground floor ceiling would become larger. The price increase is just extremely high, though. Only about 3m² (32 square feet) will be added. It’s also clear that this won’t increase the living space on the upper floor, but the external appearance is important to us, and it definitely looks much better now than before.
That’s exactly it—we don’t want to ruin the proportions either. Until now, everything was great, and now comes the unpleasant surprise. As I mentioned, I already had to prove he miscalculated, but I can’t just tell him that directly. He also tried to explain which trades are involved, but I can roughly estimate that myself and can’t really follow his explanation.
This house is not cheap; we’ve gathered many quotes, and this was one of the more expensive options. They also call themselves premium houses.
I’m probably really at his mercy, and I have no other choice. Moving the upper floor forward is not an option either, because then the whole upper floor would have to be redesigned, and the effect would be lost. We had that idea before signing the contract, but we also wanted to increase the ground floor by one meter (3 feet) downward. He said that would be way too expensive and advised against it. When we proposed this plan months later, he said, “Sure, that’s possible; you can do that with the bay window too.”
I wouldn’t have complained, BUT what bothers me is this: In the contract final plan, the company didn’t include the usable area under the stairs, which is about 4m² (43 square feet). I never specifically mentioned this, since you’re not very familiar at the beginning. This usable area only became clear during the execution planning. When he explained the costs to me, he said the usable area had increased by 7m² (75 square feet). But in reality, it’s only 2.9m² (31 square feet) because the usable space under the stairs was already there. I tried to explain this to him, but he shut me down, saying the system calculated it automatically and that he had recalculated it too. I suspect he included the approx. 4m² of usable area under the stairs in the calculation as well. That’s what makes me suspicious.
Thanks in advance for your replies.
I was already aware that the foundation slab and ground floor ceiling would become larger. The price increase is just extremely high, though. Only about 3m² (32 square feet) will be added. It’s also clear that this won’t increase the living space on the upper floor, but the external appearance is important to us, and it definitely looks much better now than before.
That’s exactly it—we don’t want to ruin the proportions either. Until now, everything was great, and now comes the unpleasant surprise. As I mentioned, I already had to prove he miscalculated, but I can’t just tell him that directly. He also tried to explain which trades are involved, but I can roughly estimate that myself and can’t really follow his explanation.
This house is not cheap; we’ve gathered many quotes, and this was one of the more expensive options. They also call themselves premium houses.
I’m probably really at his mercy, and I have no other choice. Moving the upper floor forward is not an option either, because then the whole upper floor would have to be redesigned, and the effect would be lost. We had that idea before signing the contract, but we also wanted to increase the ground floor by one meter (3 feet) downward. He said that would be way too expensive and advised against it. When we proposed this plan months later, he said, “Sure, that’s possible; you can do that with the bay window too.”
I wouldn’t have complained, BUT what bothers me is this: In the contract final plan, the company didn’t include the usable area under the stairs, which is about 4m² (43 square feet). I never specifically mentioned this, since you’re not very familiar at the beginning. This usable area only became clear during the execution planning. When he explained the costs to me, he said the usable area had increased by 7m² (75 square feet). But in reality, it’s only 2.9m² (31 square feet) because the usable space under the stairs was already there. I tried to explain this to him, but he shut me down, saying the system calculated it automatically and that he had recalculated it too. I suspect he included the approx. 4m² of usable area under the stairs in the calculation as well. That’s what makes me suspicious.
Schurik19855 schrieb:
Now we have extended the bay window down to the lower edge of the house to 6 meters (20 feet). That means the walls on the upper floor no longer stand on the lower walls in the basement. This added 2.9 m² (31 sq ft) of living space, and the construction company wants an additional 11,800 EUR for this. No, they want that super-friendly price because you made a special request that falls into the category of a "punishment for someone who has done something really wrong," as explained in this post
andimann schrieb:
Hello,
you’ve opened quite a big can of worms with this change, which explained it better than I could have. Commenting on it with words like
Schurik19855 schrieb:
I am probably really at the mercy of others is pretty cheeky and ungrateful. Always these princesses wanting ultra-fine-dust unicorn extra square meters at the price of donkey-standard square meters.
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
S
Schurik1985510 Feb 2020 21:00I don’t really see how this topic relates to princesses and unicorns, but thank you very much for this constructive response!!!
Schurik19855 schrieb:
I’m not sure what princesses and unicorns have to do with this topic, The house itself is a completely standard box design, and its price per square meter reflects that. However, the price per square meter for the bay window extension is extremely high just because of the structural complexities that come with it—like a truffle compared to a standard mushroom. You can’t expect to apply the same standard mass-market price to it when selling. Simply assuming that you can apply the usual price of the rest of the house to that extension is an incredibly naive fantasy, typical only of today’s unique generation of homebuyers who claim to be “informed consumers” but still question everything for the first time. The customer today simply lacks manners. You say “thank you” if you are being gifted such a special request at eight times the cost, not complain that it doesn’t make sense. Of course it doesn’t make sense—the price is a g-i-f-t. And just because it was the weekend and I was offline, you didn’t get this explained by me, but by @andimann, and therefore with the benefit of the doubt
andimann schrieb:
probably without you realizing it: which I wouldn’t grant for this kind of thing. At some point, I think people have to stop acting as if they have an inherent right to ignorance.
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
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