Reno Dispute (Anybody Got Experience)

[seafury 0]

Got my flat key last year 20th november, hired a "good friend" to help to do up my 3 room flat. Sign a contract of 27k including kitchen cabinets. (exclude 2 feature wall, 4ft & another is 8ft. a casement wardrobe of 6ft and electrical fee. And I ask my so call "good friend" to quote the carpentry prices and he say need to measure and quote but did not quote out any price at all and he started doing up all the carpentry work and I keep on questioning him on the actual price for the carpentry work as I am afraid it will be over my budget of max 35k and he did not even write out a quotation or contract for me to sign and only say it will be "friend's price". Finished the hse reno end of March and he requested for payment of 30k as I was taking bank reno loan so i just hand him the cheque and I requested him to give me a FINAL quotation for the remaining work. And in August 2011 he billed me $56K and on top of the 30k that i already given him I still got to fork out cash 26k.

I did not even sign any contract other than the 27K and when I ask him for a quote first he keep saying the carpenter will measure n calculate (what rubbish is this?) n if he had quoted me a price on the carpentry I would have stop him in doing as its too expensive. And his company call me to say if i am not going to pay up they are going to small claim??? Anybody got experience in handling this? This is my first time reno a flat and thinking that i can trust a friend to do for me and who knows???

[dinobros 1]

Got my flat key last year 20th november, hired a "good friend" to help to do up my 3 room flat. Sign a contract of 27k including kitchen cabinets. (exclude 2 feature wall, 4ft & another is 8ft. a casement wardrobe of 6ft and electrical fee. And I ask my so call "good friend" to quote the carpentry prices and he say need to measure and quote but did not quote out any price at all and he started doing up all the carpentry work and I keep on questioning him on the actual price for the carpentry work as I am afraid it will be over my budget of max 35k and he did not even write out a quotation or contract for me to sign and only say it will be "friend's price". Finished the hse reno end of March and he requested for payment of 30k as I was taking bank reno loan so i just hand him the cheque and I requested him to give me a FINAL quotation for the remaining work. And in August 2011 he billed me $56K and on top of the 30k that i already given him I still got to fork out cash 26k.

I did not even sign any contract other than the 27K and when I ask him for a quote first he keep saying the carpenter will measure n calculate (what rubbish is this?) n if he had quoted me a price on the carpentry I would have stop him in doing as its too expensive. And his company call me to say if i am not going to pay up they are going to small claim??? Anybody got experience in handling this? This is my first time reno a flat and thinking that i can trust a friend to do for me and who knows???

No additional quotes nor additional documents regarding the additional works? Ask them to remove it and bring it back?

However to be fair, maybe you want to post your entire invoice with breakdown.

29k for the above few items seem a little high.

[potatoes 0]

56k reno for a 3 rm flat? hmmm.... U should be transparent and share with us how he get his figures. I m surprise u even hand a 30k cheque without proper paper work such as quotation or invoice.

I think u have been taken for a ride..... It seems that this so call good friend of yours is taking advantage of your kind character. Perhaps, u should just get him to give u the official doc.

[arowana 2]

sorry man.. if u made such a mistake... you have to live with it. No black and white. You could have insisted on seeing the contract first before starting anything. There's no such thing as 'friends' in business. Keep frens and work separate.

[edenstrauss 3]

I strongly agree with arowana. There is no such thing as friends when it comes down strictly to business & work-related issues becox at the end of the day, the profit margin counts, which is what people run a business for. Not to do charity work but to earn a living so it's the $$ that counts.

And engaging friends for their services is a litmus test for true colours. When things go wrong, you lost each other's friendship.

In our case, we try very hard to avoid engaging friends to do the work. However, if we have no choice but to engage very very good friends to do the job, we would make them commit a quotation in black & white. Or draw up a quotation yourself & make them fill in the blanks. Otherwise, we tell them that we didn't dare to engage them becox we have to track down our budget.

Do you think u could upload a copy of his quotation/ invoice or let what the rest of the contributors for your thread has requested for, i.e. to give a full breakdown of the reno billing? For the purpose of advice from renotalk members.

Also, did u contact CASE? And please check if your friend's company is registered wtih RADAC? If yes, u might want to contact them to ask them if they could help mediate for such disputes.

Edited September 30, 2011 by edenstrauss

[Renmapiao 1]

Sorry to hear about your plight. If you have your "agreement" in the sms or phone conversation, this can be used as evidence. A verbal agreement is as good as a written one. Smses are even better. Hope this helps

Got my flat key last year 20th november, hired a "good friend" to help to do up my 3 room flat. Sign a contract of 27k including kitchen cabinets. (exclude 2 feature wall, 4ft & another is 8ft. a casement wardrobe of 6ft and electrical fee. And I ask my so call "good friend" to quote the carpentry prices and he say need to measure and quote but did not quote out any price at all and he started doing up all the carpentry work and I keep on questioning him on the actual price for the carpentry work as I am afraid it will be over my budget of max 35k and he did not even write out a quotation or contract for me to sign and only say it will be "friend's price". Finished the hse reno end of March and he requested for payment of 30k as I was taking bank reno loan so i just hand him the cheque and I requested him to give me a FINAL quotation for the remaining work. And in August 2011 he billed me $56K and on top of the 30k that i already given him I still got to fork out cash 26k.

I did not even sign any contract other than the 27K and when I ask him for a quote first he keep saying the carpenter will measure n calculate (what rubbish is this?) n if he had quoted me a price on the carpentry I would have stop him in doing as its too expensive. And his company call me to say if i am not going to pay up they are going to small claim??? Anybody got experience in handling this? This is my first time reno a flat and thinking that i can trust a friend to do for me and who knows???

[Renmapiao 1]

Sorry to hear about your plight. If you have your "agreement" in the sms or phone conversation, this can be used as evidence. A verbal agreement is as good as a written one. Smses are even better. Hope this helps

Got my flat key last year 20th november, hired a "good friend" to help to do up my 3 room flat. Sign a contract of 27k including kitchen cabinets. (exclude 2 feature wall, 4ft & another is 8ft. a casement wardrobe of 6ft and electrical fee. And I ask my so call "good friend" to quote the carpentry prices and he say need to measure and quote but did not quote out any price at all and he started doing up all the carpentry work and I keep on questioning him on the actual price for the carpentry work as I am afraid it will be over my budget of max 35k and he did not even write out a quotation or contract for me to sign and only say it will be "friend's price". Finished the hse reno end of March and he requested for payment of 30k as I was taking bank reno loan so i just hand him the cheque and I requested him to give me a FINAL quotation for the remaining work. And in August 2011 he billed me $56K and on top of the 30k that i already given him I still got to fork out cash 26k.

I did not even sign any contract other than the 27K and when I ask him for a quote first he keep saying the carpenter will measure n calculate (what rubbish is this?) n if he had quoted me a price on the carpentry I would have stop him in doing as its too expensive. And his company call me to say if i am not going to pay up they are going to small claim??? Anybody got experience in handling this? This is my first time reno a flat and thinking that i can trust a friend to do for me and who knows???