subject: The Nightmare of Renovating Your Home [print this page] You need to renovate your homeYou need to renovate your home. Maybe knock out some walls to make more interior space, re-do your kitchen or bathroom, finish out your basement as a rec room, etc.
You just don't have the time or expertise to do all of this yourself so you decide to hire a contractor.
Here's a very typical scenario:
You talk to a neighbor or a friend and get the name of a contractor (or you just go to the yellow pages or the internet). The contractor meets you at your home. You describe to him what you want in as much detail as you can muster up at the time. He asks questions and you answer them off the cuff' based on emotion and not much real knowledge. Either then or at some time in the very near future he gives you a price. The price may be in your budget or it may not. Let's assume that his price is reasonably close to your budget figure so you tell him to go ahead and here is what follows:
The contractor brings you a contract form and since he's such a nice guy and says what you want to hear you sign it.
After he gets started on your project and as time goes on he begins to tell you about all the things it will take to complete the job that he did not figure in his cost. His rationale is that you didn't tell him that these things were to be included. Your response, of course, is that he should have known they would be included since getting things built the way an owner wants is his job.
Typically these are not really big items but he is so convincing and you know so little about the process and the situation that you seem to have no choice but to OK them. After all, at this stage of the project what else are you going to do?
At this point he has the upper hand in a really big way. After a short while, this series of "small" items mushroom into a figure 25% or more over your budget. The contractor has methodically justified all of this by getting you to approve an onslaught of relatively small items as the work progresses.
You have, by default, set the precedent for approving his claims whether or not they are really justified.
Weeks later you suddenly see the accumulated total but it's too late.
There's more but this is the essence of what can and typically does happen, to one degree or another.
The good news is that in large part the above scenario can, in most cases, be easily avoided.
