Being asked to pay for services of landscaper up front

[gailjon]

Hi all, funny email received today and I was wondering if it had happened to anyone else.

We had arranged quotes for a patio to be fitted to our house after having various quotes. We chose a builder who seemed to have a good reputation and had the materials delivered to the house for fitting sometime April/May.

Just today I got an email form the landscapers that included this:

We have had confirmation from our accountant that we have now reached the VAT threshold due to the natural growth of the business.

With this in mind our accountant has advised us that we have Until the end of the month for any customers already booked in to make payments if they wish to prevent paying the additional VAT which would need to be added.

We came to the conclusion that 75% payments would cover the main costs with preventing any VAT to be added onto the Job.

Obviously, we understand if you wish to not make any payments prior to work commencing.

If you have any further questions or would like to discuss this, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Thank you for your understanding and be assured we are doing everything we can to get to all of your jobs as planed with recent events that have happened in the business and the lovely British weather.

Is this something that we should consider (paying the 75%?) I am worried that this seems a little bit of a 'we'll take your money and then buggar off' move from them. I don't think they are that sort of company but it does seem to be saying pay us the 75% now or pay an extra 20%.

Any thoughts?

 

[gailjon]

Depends if that extra 20% is going to put you off or not.

I definitely don't want to pay and extra 20%! That would around £1500 to the cost. But then again, do I want to pay 75% of the job up front? I was always of the impression, and have always done in the past, only paid when job was completed to our satisfaction.

Just had large patio doors fitted and while we paid for the window themselves up front when delivered, we only paid for the building work once it was totally finished.

 

[gailjon]

Very interesting and informed replies - thank you very much. I think a phone call to them and discussion of the reasons are needed. I am worried that, as mentioned, this could be a worrying cashflow issue.

 

[gailjon]

He hasn't explicitly said that. The builder may have paid for them.

Yes, the materials are sitting at home all ready to go. Had a word with the company yesterday and they are looking into the invoice date/ VAT requirements.

 

[gailjon]

I think one of the issues is that the company has being around for a long time, but he did tell me that over the past year he had taken on new staff to create another project team to expand how many jobs they could do. I would imagine this increased revenue and hence VAT registration required.