Construction Project

dave111223 · June 25, 2010

We (wife and I) hired a local contractor/technician to perform some tasks on a townhouse building, such as painting, wiring, some pipes etc..

Quote was 56,000 THB for labor estimated timeframe less than month, during the project the total quote has increased to around 70,000THB seeing as there are a few things which were above the initial contract, which i'm fine with.

Anyways we have paid around 45K already during the project, and it's probably about 60% done after a month. However the contractor is now saying he wants to get paid 16K now (which would bring the total paid to about 61K). His reason for wanting to get paid now is that he supposedly has yet to have paid any of his laborers ...(i think from piecing together information that most of the 45K we have paid him he has used to pay off prior debts instead of pay his employees).

Anyways paying this now would leave only 9K remaining and i'm highly suspicious that he'd do a runner with only this amount of money left. But i've got him whining about how he needs to pay his employees. Even some of his employees were whining directly to me that they want me to pay them.

The problem is he has hired too many employees for too much money, and they are slow as sh*t...it took 4 of them 4 days to put up 1 room of drywall! (they basically suck at construction in general)

My general opinion is "Why the f*** is it my problem how or when or how much you pay your employees? I hired you not your employees". But i'm biting my tongue as a do not want to get into a situation of him running out on the project or stealing suppliers etc...

But I sure as hel_l am not about to pay him almost the full amount of the project and have him run off with that either. To be honest i don't feel like paying him anything more until more work is completed.

Any advice as to how to walk this fine line?

Edited June 25, 2010 by dave111223

kandahar · June 25, 2010

Stick to your guns, man. He can borrow money to pay his help and repay the loan when the job is finished and you have paid him in full. You are not his only option. Remind him of that. No completed job, no more money.

Thaifan2 · June 25, 2010

Agree with the above .Dont give any more till the job is finished .

richardt1808 · June 25, 2010

I'd perhaps give him something - at least you'd be walking the 'middle path' as they always like to mention over here.

While it may be fine to stick to your guns and play hard-ball, you also have to consider if it would really be worth all the trouble of finding a new company if this guy does decide to bail

kandahar · June 25, 2010

I think he has already met the man in "the middle path". It is time for the contractor to uphold his end. There are way too many stories with bad endings when you give more than your gut feeling tells you.

If the dude bails, let him. You yourself can find the laborers and a foreman to finish the job and pay them each at the end of the day, every day. There are lots of day laborers out there. I use them here often.

JUDAS · June 25, 2010

You say your builder is a bout a month into the job and it's around 60% complete. You've paid him 45k already towards a final bill of 70k, which means he's already received around 65% of his payment. With around another month to go and the costs of at least 4 laborers to pay at the end of that time, I can't see how he'll manage that with only another 9k coming if you give him 16k now. Just looking at the numbers, I reckon he's going to be short of cash to pay his guys next month even if you do give him 16k now. Seems likely your "quote" may well be getting revised upwards very soon. Good luck.

Edit: I wouldn't give him more than 5k, if that, at the minute.

Edited June 25, 2010 by JUDAS

slapout · June 25, 2010

Guess you do not have a written contract with specific payment schedule. Tell him you are awaiting transfer of money from overseas bank, July 4 holiday can slow transfer up somewhat, (Thai way). A third of the total is reasonable final payment. upon completion of all work. Doubt if he is paying 4 laborers 1000 baht/day, so if you can figure what the material cost of project to date, you can get a good idea of how much of your payments have gone into your project to date. lots of luck

dave111223 · June 26, 2010

Guess you do not have a written contract with specific payment schedule. Tell him you are awaiting transfer of money from overseas bank, July 4 holiday can slow transfer up somewhat, (Thai way). A third of the total is reasonable final payment. upon completion of all work. Doubt if he is paying 4 laborers 1000 baht/day, so if you can figure what the material cost of project to date, you can get a good idea of how much of your payments have gone into your project to date. lots of luck

BTW the 70K does not include any materials, just labor cost. We have paid all materials separately.

We do have a contract with the payments paid incrementally every 3 days during the project provided that the project is still on schedule (basically the percentage paid should be around the percentage completed). But the project is behind schedule so we have slowed the payments to match the work (as stipulated in the contract)

The problem is he seems to be paying his laborers way over market value...250 per day as you said would probably be about normally. He is supposedly paying some of them (such as one "Wood Technician", AKA more of a "Wood Butcher/Murderer" 500THB per day!) + 3 meals a day!

I would be fine to pay him over the quote, if i thought the amount of work warranted it, but most of the time has just been wasted. For example they had to install a toilet, but instead of adjusting the pipe position first, they poured a bunch of concrete down first. Then they realized the pipe was in the wrong place and had to spend a whole day smashing out the concrete to move the pipe... (despite the fact that i told them about 5 times prior to this to measure the toilet pipe first!)

Anyway we think we have reached a compromise with him. We have a set a list of specific goals that need to be completed, and then we will give him 10K. Which would leave about 15K and only some painting to do, which i think he will feel is worth the 15K to complete.

Thanks for the replies all.

Edited June 26, 2010 by dave111223