Tradie quote costs
Question from SHELLEY updated on 16th December 2019:
Can our property management company let their supplier charge us for labour costs - on top of travelling costs - for coming on site to give a quotation without doing any job or repair work?
Our expert Bernard Parker responded:
It has been common in the past for tradespeople to provide free quotes for work. Some still do.
However, the cost of travelling to sites in order to inspect and then provide a free quotation has become prohibitive for many small operators. For example, when there are three people quoting and only one successful bidder, two will have incurred costs that they cannot recover.
To overcome this, many tradespeople have a policy to charge for their time and costs in providing a quotation for a job that they may not win. (Some may not charge for the quotation if they eventually win the job.)
Bernard is principal of Quinovic – Kapiti-Mana. Quinovic's outstanding people and systems provide the most professional, effective and reliable residential property management service in the NZ market for over 30 years.Search the Ask an Expert archive
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