Tae pay or not tae pay

Hootsmon · August 2023

Some problems on my tenement building roof and water getting in top two flats.On going thing for some months now....

14/15 years ago a new roof was installed with 25 years guarantee. This specialist roof company biz went tits up and guarantee now means shit, so recently we had to get a local roofer in to check the roof and report back on work/repairs needing done

Source of rain entrance was discovered, work done and duly paid. As they were packing up they discovered "the real source of rain entrance" and a further job and fee ensued. They of course ran the situation by the tenants and asked us if we were happy to proceed with this 2nd repair job

Whilst they were finishing up again they noticed that the chimney was most likely responsible for the rain water entrance

this time they tackled the job without our permission or job/fee negotiations. Extensive work was done to chimney at an extra cost to each tenant (6x) of 350 quid

So,we need to decide whether to pay for the unapproved roof work. Since we did not instruct the work we are not legally obliged to pay. and **** roof company agrees. The work was however done and getting roof company to return in future or honour their guarantee might be a problem.

It has been agreed If one household out of the six says no pay....the roofers are not getting their dosh.

My own household is split...wife says pay, Hoots says no pay......what say you?

nero1701 · August 2023

It's £350, you'd spend mair on a guitar pedal.

Pay it, but let the roofer know your no happy.

Hootsmon · August 2023

BillDL · August 2023

£350 to some people is bank-breaking, especially in view of already having to fork out for the initial work done before they apparently "happened upon" another source of leakage. To others with more disposable income £350 is fairly small fry. I'm not going to make any assumptions about how skint or rich you might be, but at the moment I would be in the position that I could afford that (although grudgingly) and my feeling is that by paying this additional cost it MIGHT make the company more amenable to coming back out to remedy any further issues with the roof, flashing, etc in the vicinity of the repairs if you pay the extra money. Of course, there's no guarantee that the company will still be there in 9 months or a year if further leaks develop in the areas they sorted out or close to it.

The source of roof leaks is pretty hard to pin-point, but I would have thought that a good roofer would have looked at other potential areas of leaks that might still be contributory or might be problematic in years to come before they started on one area, and addressed them while they were doing the main job, not as they were clearing up. Even if they had pointed out the additional potential or actual problem while they were doing the main job it might then only have incurred an additional £100 in materials and labour each (£600 total) rather than a whopping £350 each (total £2100).

I would be inclined to try and negotiate it down to something like £150 to £200 each (£900 to £1200 total) on the basis that they carried out the work without advanced consent and see whether all the tenants would be willing to pay the extra.

Hootsmon · August 2023

Cheers Bill

sev112 · August 2023

The key to me is what would have been the cost to fully open up and investigate the whole roof etc to find the actual source of leak at the start; then add the cost of the actual required repairs. Then add the financial benefit of any betterment you have received from the first 2 bits of work.

Work out that sum (I would bet a full opening up and investigation would have cost more) and if it is roughly what you have paid already plus the 350 then a court would probably say you haven’t lost anything.

a roofing contractor is really a contractor who does contracting works on roofs, they are not neseccarily seer seers or investigation specialists (unless you procured them to investigate and guarantee the identified cause was correct

Emp_Fab · September 2023

I dunnae norr. Am ornly here tae tork weea scorts accent tha noo.

Dominic · September 2023

As a professional in this field I would take the Standards and terms of a JCT Minor Works contract as the backbone for a decision .......
It is always clearly defined that any substitutions ( ie using cheaper materials/methodology that deviate from a precise spec ) are not permitted without prior approval from a client with a cost saving credit to client benefit addended to the account .
- otherwise contractors would cut corners left ,right and centre to increase margin .
In a similar way NO EXTRAS or additional works are to be undertaken and charged without the PROIR full consent and cost approval of the client - otherwise contractors could write their own agenda and upsell numerous questionable tasks .
They have probably acted honourably and without trying to deceive but the prerogative /decision was not theirs to make .
What if the cost was £1500 each ?
It may also be argued that they were employed for the express purpose of their 'expertise' and that they did not diligently report or establish the true cause of the leak .....define the critical path to repair etc etc
Defective chimneys,flashings, pointing don't suddenly appear.....they are a common and frequent cause of roof defect ;why was this not scrutinized to begin with ?
....it may be fair to pay once the costs of the other repairs have been credited to the respective bank accounts of the clients !

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Tae pay or not tae pay

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