M
Mike Mike
I've seen a few posts on this site unfortunately from people who have been stiffed by unscrupulous customers, and also quite a few posts from customers who have been dissatisfied with the quality of tiling work performed by tilers.
So that both parties are protected, you should always have a robust contract. It can be verbal, but a written contract is always much better if the matter ends up going to court (simply because it is harder for one party to lie about what was agreed).
For a contract to exist between two parties (in England and Wales, don't know if Scotland is different??) the following elements must exist:
OFFER. This can be from the tiler, or from the customer, but is most usually a quotation from the tiler.
ACCEPTANCE. The offer has been accepted in total by the receiving party. A counter-offer makes the original offer null and void.
CONSIDERATION. Both parties must receive something of value. In legal terms, if I say to you, "I will tile your bathroom, and I'll do it for free". But I then fail to tile your bathroom, you cannot take me to court and claim I breached the contract. There was no contract, because there was no consideration (nothing of value that I was going to receive).
INTENTION TO CREATE LEGAL RELATIONS. You must both have capacity to enter into the contract.
A contract can be re-negotiated at any time BUT it will only supercede the original contract if both parties agree to the revised contract terms. One party saying "I only want to pay you half of what we agreed" which is not agreed to by the other party does NOT supercede the contract. Likewise, a tiler who discovers structural damage when he/she removes plasterboard may need to re-negotiate the contract if there is more work than originally anticipated. The customer does not have to agree to this, but likewise, the tiler does not have to perform any work outside of the contract...
Within your quotation it is good practice to specifiy exactly what works you will be performing, what materials you will be supplying (if any), what your payment terms are and (this is usually missing from most contracts between tradesmen and householders, but is usual for commercial contracts) what acceptance criteria there will be for the works performed i.e. on what basis is the work being performed e.g. to British Standards, who will assess that the work has been performed acceptably, and what process or procedure shall be followed if the acceptance criteria are not deemed to have been met e.g. arbitration, and if so, by whom? Is there a trade association, or national body in the U.K. for inspecting works and deeming them to meet national standards or not?
This is a very important part of the agreement. And discussing it with the customer can avoid a lot of dissatsifaction later on. I have read numerous posts on this forum from customers who expected their tiling installation to be perfect, lip free, even with 600x600, or in one case, 1000x400 tiles. What does "lip free" mean? How do you measure for lippage? Is there an accepted industry standard way to measure lippage?
As a tiler, your going in position on your quote should state that you will perform the tiling works to British Standards of workmanship. But you should also take the time to ensure the customer understands what that means. If there is a disconnect between a customer's expectations and what is achievable and realistic (and/or what is within your own capabilities), now is the time to discover it, not at the end of the job when they refuse to pay and start posting photos of your work on this forum and refer to you as a cowboy.
If part of the works involves open-ended work charged on a time and materials basis i.e. not agreed on a fixed price / number of days basis before works commenced e.g. because the tradesman did not know how long it would take because he/she did not know what they would find when they removed the plasterboard, and the customer agreed to this (accepted the offer), it is advisable to have a contract checkpoint and acceptance criteria for that stage before the next stage of works commences - the customer signs off that you have worked the 'n' days and they are satsified and agree for you to proceed with fulfilling the remaining elements of the contract (the tiling). If they later dispute the invoice claiming they didn't realise you had to do so much preparation work, or they had not agreed to it, they don't have a leg to stand on, because they gave the approval for you to go ahead and tile. It is better to have this dispute BEFORE you have invested time, energy and money in completing the entire job and then discovering there is a problem with the customer.
Remember, contracts exist to protect BOTH parties. Tradesmen who fail to perform to contract are not required to be paid. Further, a customer can bring a claim against a tradesman for breach of contract, it is not just tradesmen bringing claims against non-paying customers.
You may be thinking "this seems all a bit over the top" for tiling a kitchen splashback or bathroom. The PRINCIPLES are not over the top. The level of detail required varies from job to job, based on complexity, duration, time and money involved (the larger the investment, the greater the risk, to both parties, of something going wrong). Applying the principles in all work that you do may be as simple as having two boxes on your written quotation, one for you to sign and date, and one for the customer to sign and date, and you giving them a copy to keep for their records, and you keeping one for yours, all the way up to having a 100 page contract and further 100 pages of acceptance criteria and SLA's. But the PRINCIPLES are exactly the same: Offer, Acceptance, Consideration, Intention to create legal relations.
One final point, because tiling is a finishing trade it is obviously not possible for anyone to see what lies underneath the tiles without ripping them off. If you have completed a wetroom for example and part of the work was to tank it (waterproof it) then it is good practice to photograph each step of your work before tiling began. Here in Sweden we usually do this and provide a sign-off pack for the customer stating what tanking system was used, we confirm in writing that manufacturer's instructions were followed, and photographic evidence of each stage is attached. This is useful for several reasons such as if the customer sells the house they can give the new owners, or a surveyor a copy of the evidence pack so they know what regulations the wetroom met, and can see that what lies under the tiles is in fact what is being claimed. It is also useful if there is an installation failure at a future date so that you cannot be accused of failing to have followed the regulations by anybody (customer, adhesive, or tanking manufacturer, insurance company, or another tradesman who may come and rip out your work and then claim you were at fault for something or other).
Good luck!
So that both parties are protected, you should always have a robust contract. It can be verbal, but a written contract is always much better if the matter ends up going to court (simply because it is harder for one party to lie about what was agreed).
For a contract to exist between two parties (in England and Wales, don't know if Scotland is different??) the following elements must exist:
OFFER. This can be from the tiler, or from the customer, but is most usually a quotation from the tiler.
ACCEPTANCE. The offer has been accepted in total by the receiving party. A counter-offer makes the original offer null and void.
CONSIDERATION. Both parties must receive something of value. In legal terms, if I say to you, "I will tile your bathroom, and I'll do it for free". But I then fail to tile your bathroom, you cannot take me to court and claim I breached the contract. There was no contract, because there was no consideration (nothing of value that I was going to receive).
INTENTION TO CREATE LEGAL RELATIONS. You must both have capacity to enter into the contract.
A contract can be re-negotiated at any time BUT it will only supercede the original contract if both parties agree to the revised contract terms. One party saying "I only want to pay you half of what we agreed" which is not agreed to by the other party does NOT supercede the contract. Likewise, a tiler who discovers structural damage when he/she removes plasterboard may need to re-negotiate the contract if there is more work than originally anticipated. The customer does not have to agree to this, but likewise, the tiler does not have to perform any work outside of the contract...
Within your quotation it is good practice to specifiy exactly what works you will be performing, what materials you will be supplying (if any), what your payment terms are and (this is usually missing from most contracts between tradesmen and householders, but is usual for commercial contracts) what acceptance criteria there will be for the works performed i.e. on what basis is the work being performed e.g. to British Standards, who will assess that the work has been performed acceptably, and what process or procedure shall be followed if the acceptance criteria are not deemed to have been met e.g. arbitration, and if so, by whom? Is there a trade association, or national body in the U.K. for inspecting works and deeming them to meet national standards or not?
This is a very important part of the agreement. And discussing it with the customer can avoid a lot of dissatsifaction later on. I have read numerous posts on this forum from customers who expected their tiling installation to be perfect, lip free, even with 600x600, or in one case, 1000x400 tiles. What does "lip free" mean? How do you measure for lippage? Is there an accepted industry standard way to measure lippage?
As a tiler, your going in position on your quote should state that you will perform the tiling works to British Standards of workmanship. But you should also take the time to ensure the customer understands what that means. If there is a disconnect between a customer's expectations and what is achievable and realistic (and/or what is within your own capabilities), now is the time to discover it, not at the end of the job when they refuse to pay and start posting photos of your work on this forum and refer to you as a cowboy.
If part of the works involves open-ended work charged on a time and materials basis i.e. not agreed on a fixed price / number of days basis before works commenced e.g. because the tradesman did not know how long it would take because he/she did not know what they would find when they removed the plasterboard, and the customer agreed to this (accepted the offer), it is advisable to have a contract checkpoint and acceptance criteria for that stage before the next stage of works commences - the customer signs off that you have worked the 'n' days and they are satsified and agree for you to proceed with fulfilling the remaining elements of the contract (the tiling). If they later dispute the invoice claiming they didn't realise you had to do so much preparation work, or they had not agreed to it, they don't have a leg to stand on, because they gave the approval for you to go ahead and tile. It is better to have this dispute BEFORE you have invested time, energy and money in completing the entire job and then discovering there is a problem with the customer.
Remember, contracts exist to protect BOTH parties. Tradesmen who fail to perform to contract are not required to be paid. Further, a customer can bring a claim against a tradesman for breach of contract, it is not just tradesmen bringing claims against non-paying customers.
You may be thinking "this seems all a bit over the top" for tiling a kitchen splashback or bathroom. The PRINCIPLES are not over the top. The level of detail required varies from job to job, based on complexity, duration, time and money involved (the larger the investment, the greater the risk, to both parties, of something going wrong). Applying the principles in all work that you do may be as simple as having two boxes on your written quotation, one for you to sign and date, and one for the customer to sign and date, and you giving them a copy to keep for their records, and you keeping one for yours, all the way up to having a 100 page contract and further 100 pages of acceptance criteria and SLA's. But the PRINCIPLES are exactly the same: Offer, Acceptance, Consideration, Intention to create legal relations.
One final point, because tiling is a finishing trade it is obviously not possible for anyone to see what lies underneath the tiles without ripping them off. If you have completed a wetroom for example and part of the work was to tank it (waterproof it) then it is good practice to photograph each step of your work before tiling began. Here in Sweden we usually do this and provide a sign-off pack for the customer stating what tanking system was used, we confirm in writing that manufacturer's instructions were followed, and photographic evidence of each stage is attached. This is useful for several reasons such as if the customer sells the house they can give the new owners, or a surveyor a copy of the evidence pack so they know what regulations the wetroom met, and can see that what lies under the tiles is in fact what is being claimed. It is also useful if there is an installation failure at a future date so that you cannot be accused of failing to have followed the regulations by anybody (customer, adhesive, or tanking manufacturer, insurance company, or another tradesman who may come and rip out your work and then claim you were at fault for something or other).
Good luck!
