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 on the situation
In general the answer is no , certainly in my case but I have in the past
and would do in the future when I feel that the person asking for the
estimate is really asking for a survey type report than a true estimate for
work they want doing
By that I mean as you may have alluded to that you do not own the house. You
may purchase the house depending on what the quote says. If the house was
yours and you were in a position to undertake the works then it is fair but
if you are in no position and in all probability will not then you are just
using the builder for a free service.
In most cases like this a charge is made and if you do purchase the house
and go ahead with the work then the charge would be refunded.

On 20 Jan 2004 17:26:22 -0800, (SuzySue)
wrote:

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

They probably would seek to charge for something like this. As you
don't own the house you would presumably need to seek permission to
gain access, and thus you couldn't even pretend it was yours when
talking to a builder.

Builders, painters, decorators, plumbers, electricians are all people
who have to earn a living. They aren't sitting on their backside
waiting for the phone to ring so that they can spend time and money
(they have to pay for fuel and so on to get there) helping someone out
with their house purchasing decision.

There's also the issue of you making a purchasing decision based upon
this quote. What would you do if you bought the house and then found
that the building work required was more severe? Sue the builder for
all costs involved? In such a case a builder is likely to want to be
very sure of what he is quoting for.

As the other respondent advised, it's entirely possible that a builder
would be prepared to re-imburse the cost of providing an estimate or
quotation if they got the work.

Note that this situation changes if you own the property already and
invite a builder to come around to give you a quote. Very often that
quote might be provided free of charge, providing that no expert
analysis were required (e.g. putting a camera down a drain to review
the state of a waste pipe or uncovering some plaster to reveal the
state of brickwork, etc). Notionally the builder would turn up, look
at the job in hand, scratch his chin, and give you the quote - without
doing any actual work. And this would take place on his way to do
another (paying) job so is not really a great loss for him.

PoP

Sending email to my published email address isn't
guaranteed to reach me.

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.

I was in a similar situation. If I mentioned that I didn't own the house,
they wanted to charge, although they would give a non-binding rough estimate
over the phone for free, based on there being no complications. I was
looking for costs for reroofing, inserting lintels, etc.

I suspect builders get a lot of potential purchasers wanting quotes and find
that very few such prospects result in a contract.

Christian.

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
______
Please reply to newsgroup. Reply address is Black Hole!

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
______
Please reply to newsgroup. Reply address is Black Hole!