I once took a builder round a house that needed a fair amount
doing to it., and got him to do a written estimate for loads of
jobs of varying sizes. This was then going to be the basis for
negotiating the purchase price. The estimate came to about £20k
and ran to many pages. The viewing took at least half an hour,
the estimate must've taken longer at least as long to prepare and
type up. In then end I did not buy the house and he had no hope
of getting the work.

With hindsight, having subsequently worked on a freelance basis
myself in another field, and realised that time really is money,
I always felt a bit bad about it, given that it was done on such
a speculative basis. I actually wish he'd charged me for an hour.
The saving grace is that, purely by chance, he turned out to be
working on a job a few doors down so he didn't have any
travelling time or expenses. Were the situation to arise again,
I'd offer to pay.

W.




"Set Square" wrote in message
...
In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
SuzySue wrote:

If someone looks at a house which is for sale, and the house
needs a
good bit of work done to it, is it possible to get a builder
to come
out to the house and give a quote/estimate as to what the
work might
cost. Even though the house is not owned, and obviously
there's
always the possibility that the purchase may not even happen.

Do builders usually charge for giving quotes/estimates for
building
work? i.e. substantial work including windows, slates,
fixing damp,
plumbing, electrics, tiling etc...


It depends to some extent on what question you are asking the
builder.

If, having examined the house yourself, you know precisely what
you want
done, a builder will hopefully quote for this for free.

If, on the other hand, you are asking the builder to advise
*what* needs to
be done before quoting for it, that includes an element of
consultancy for
which I would expect a charge to be made.
--
Cheers,
Set Square
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