double billed

[linear]

My contractor is my best buddy, a guy who would do me great favors any day. I know this because he tells me so.

So naturally, every single draw sheet has mistakes. Eh, mostly they are "honest" mistakes, probably due to his just getting reorganized as a new company. Well, my budget had $1000 in it for utilities during construction. And on about the fifth draw, he hits me with:
generator rental $500
generator rental $250
generator rental $325

The first didn't come with an invoice. He says "that was for the use of my generator."
The second came with an invoice--the one the framers submitted three months ago, and it was paid in full and charged against the framing bucket.
The third one was submitted by the trim carpenters, which was an invoice in the current draw.

Now, to add insult to injury, the transformer had been on the pole for about 60 days at this point, all that needed done was to put a meter in the box and hook up the drop. He just never got off his butt and ordered it.

So we tried what any righteous homeowner would do, and called him to ask the following:
1) why do we have to pay for the generator rental twice
2) why do we have to pay for your poor planning
3) why are you charging us more than is even in the budget, this is supposed to be capped at the budget number (gotta love fixed-price contracts)

The answer: because he's our friend. He was doing us a favor by letting us use his generator etc. etc. etc. With friends like him...

Anyway, at the end of it, we paid. Because I want my house to get finished. Extortion is the word really.

I can docuement that he double billed me. Any chance I could get him in small claims court after my house is done? I could probably kick him to the curb at this stage, but at the time (six weeks ago) I couldn't.

[linear]

Oh yeah, I forgot: for $500 I could have *bought* his generator. :roll:

[Rich]

Your biggest friend is documentation. If you can put an exact timeline to when the transformer was installed and when the meter could have been installed and used.. you probably have a decent chance. I would try and work it out first, since he is a friend, by sitting down and going over the total cost of the generator. I can see where he is coming from - that's how money is made by charging rent on equipment higher than actual paid price over a period of time. But I also see a major letdown in business practice - a fixed price is a fixed price no matter how it's cut.

As an aside we have 200 amp pull-behind generators and only charge 300 / month - so I think his price is a bit high for a $500 generator.

[utahcutter]

Also from what I understand, small claims may find him guilty, but there is really no penalty if he doesn't pay up. In other words you can't squeeze blood from turnips, and you may just be out the money. But you never know he may pay up if you go after him. I also agree that he was charging a bit much for the rental.