Hello everyone,
I have additionally commissioned my heating installation company to carry out the bathroom installation on a time-and-materials basis.
The last delivery of two washbasins and vanity units arrived, and the company was notified. After about a week, I received a call saying that the installation would start the very next day at 10 a.m. However, the company only arrived at 2 p.m., installed most of the items, and left after 2 hours. The following day, the company came back (at 11 a.m.) and finished the remaining work within 1 hour (this was on a Friday).
Now I have received an invoice:
Day 1: travel distance (km)
Day 1: travel time
Day 1: 2 hours labor time
Day 2: travel distance (km)
Day 2: travel time
Day 2: 1 hour labor time
The breakdown is accurate, and I’m sure many here could reference legal provisions to confirm that this is acceptable under the law.
But just the travel distance and time make up more than half of the invoice. Personally, I feel this is unfair. They could have easily completed the work in one day. Why they had to leave, I can only speculate. But even earlier during the heating installation, work always ended at 4 p.m.
Have you experienced something similar? Is there any way I can dispute these double travel charges?
Thanks and best regards,
Stefan
I have additionally commissioned my heating installation company to carry out the bathroom installation on a time-and-materials basis.
The last delivery of two washbasins and vanity units arrived, and the company was notified. After about a week, I received a call saying that the installation would start the very next day at 10 a.m. However, the company only arrived at 2 p.m., installed most of the items, and left after 2 hours. The following day, the company came back (at 11 a.m.) and finished the remaining work within 1 hour (this was on a Friday).
Now I have received an invoice:
Day 1: travel distance (km)
Day 1: travel time
Day 1: 2 hours labor time
Day 2: travel distance (km)
Day 2: travel time
Day 2: 1 hour labor time
The breakdown is accurate, and I’m sure many here could reference legal provisions to confirm that this is acceptable under the law.
But just the travel distance and time make up more than half of the invoice. Personally, I feel this is unfair. They could have easily completed the work in one day. Why they had to leave, I can only speculate. But even earlier during the heating installation, work always ended at 4 p.m.
Have you experienced something similar? Is there any way I can dispute these double travel charges?
Thanks and best regards,
Stefan
Building expert, are you serious?
The contractor gives a price for a job that takes three hours WITHOUT mentioning any additional costs, not even for a single trip.
Why should you have to pay for travel at all? The contractor knows the location of the service, so they should submit a complete offer including travel costs or explicitly exclude these costs in their offer.
Why does the customer have to point this out in the contract?
Do I also have to exclude paying for the master’s mother’s funeral, as that might somehow be related to the installation of my sanitary facilities, even though it’s not explicitly stated in the contractor’s offer that these costs are included!?
The contractor gives a price for a job that takes three hours WITHOUT mentioning any additional costs, not even for a single trip.
Why should you have to pay for travel at all? The contractor knows the location of the service, so they should submit a complete offer including travel costs or explicitly exclude these costs in their offer.
Why does the customer have to point this out in the contract?
Do I also have to exclude paying for the master’s mother’s funeral, as that might somehow be related to the installation of my sanitary facilities, even though it’s not explicitly stated in the contractor’s offer that these costs are included!?
Hello,
to carry out the bathroom installation "based on the effort involved,"
the installer will need to spend time traveling to the construction site.
Regarding "the last delivery,"
I assume that the installer has already performed additional installation work on other days beyond the original contract without charging any travel fees proportionally.
So the supervisor is not being overly meticulous, and if I were you, I wouldn’t be either.
Olli
to carry out the bathroom installation "based on the effort involved,"
the installer will need to spend time traveling to the construction site.
Regarding "the last delivery,"
I assume that the installer has already performed additional installation work on other days beyond the original contract without charging any travel fees proportionally.
So the supervisor is not being overly meticulous, and if I were you, I wouldn’t be either.
Olli
B
Bauexperte12 Aug 2015 01:19oleda222 schrieb:
Bauexperte, are you serious?Yes.oleda222 schrieb:
Do I also have to exclude paying for the master craftsman’s mother’s funeral? That might somehow be related to the installation of my sanitary fixtures, but the craftsman’s offer doesn’t explicitly state these costs are included, right?Sorry – even as a native German speaker – I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell (write to) me…?Regards, Bauexperte
What is so difficult about this?
The contractor provides a quote:
Sanitary installation: EUR 150.00
no mention of additional costs.
Then the invoice arrives:
Sanitary installation: EUR 150.00
Travel to the construction site: 2 x EUR 150.00
Invoice total: EUR 450.00
The numbers are for illustration purposes only.
According to your earlier statement, this seems acceptable because additional costs such as travel were not explicitly excluded in the order confirmation.
The contractor provides a quote:
Sanitary installation: EUR 150.00
no mention of additional costs.
Then the invoice arrives:
Sanitary installation: EUR 150.00
Travel to the construction site: 2 x EUR 150.00
Invoice total: EUR 450.00
The numbers are for illustration purposes only.
According to your earlier statement, this seems acceptable because additional costs such as travel were not explicitly excluded in the order confirmation.
oleda222 schrieb:
What’s so difficult about that?Perhaps the somewhat "awkward" phrasing.
oleda222 schrieb:
According to your earlier statement, it seems acceptable because additional costs like travel were not explicitly excluded in the order confirmation.A more effective approach would be to ask what exactly was agreed upon. It’s important to understand that there can also be “unspoken” agreements, and contract law for work and services often implies a right to payment even if it was not explicitly agreed.
In this case, nothing can really be “judged” because we simply have far too little information about how the order was placed and carried out.
However, there are several strong arguments why the client would not have agreed to double travel costs if they had known that the work would not be completed on the scheduled day. Most likely, they would have arranged for the next day’s work instead, specifically to avoid paying for double travel.
Also, the contractor cannot simply pass on costs related to their own logistical planning to the client without further agreement. It could be questioned, however, whether, for example, additional materials were required for full assembly that were not known beforehand and therefore had to be procured. This is then the standard excuse.
H
HilfeHilfe13 Aug 2015 07:16I would be interested to see how this turns out.
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