Erin
Just wondering if anyone has any experience dealing with disputes about a payment claim/payment schedule with their building company? Our story in brief:
– I found out that the roofer our building company was due to subcontract our roof work to had a reputation for poor workmanship (I recently started working for another building company that used to use this roofer and no longer use him due to poor workmanship that the roofer refused to fix)
– The roofing started a week later than we had been advised by our building company (no reason for the delay was given to us by our building company, and there was only 1 day of bad weather during that week) and has taken 4 weeks to date – all the sheets are up but the flashings and valleys are not finished yet. There is also a significant amount of remedial work to be undertaken – we have found 8 significantly dented roofing panels, one hole of about 15mm in length in one section and 13 roofing nails that have missed purllins and are showing through the inside of the roof.
– Our building company sent us a payment claim for the roof (we paid 50% of the roof payment prior to the roofing work starting, as per our contract), worth $19k, due within 5 working days (as per our contract) which was Friday 27 Oct. We went up to our section to check over the roofing progress on Wednesday and found the flashings and valleys still unfinished and no remedial work has been done. We sent a payment schedule to our building company on Thursday, stating we were paying 50% of the payment claim and outlining our reasons for not paying the full amount (work yet to be undertaken on the roof, as well as substantial remedial work outstanding).
– We received an email from the building company on Friday, requesting an “urgent meeting” as non-payment of the full amount of the payment claim is “unacceptable”. We requested a meeting on site, so we could show them the reasons we are not happy to pay the full amount – as we don’t think anyone from the building company has been up to our site all week. The reply from the building company was that it was not a construction meeting but a meeting to discuss our “contractual obligations” so the meeting would be in their office. The tone of their emails has been rude and arrogant, and we’re quite sure that we’re acting in accordance with the Constructions Contract Act by giving them a payment schedule with reasons.
– We’re not willing to pay the remaining amount until we have been advised how the remedial works will be undertaken and when. The 13 nails that have missed purlins need to be fixed, as well as the flashing fixed down properly, the dented panels and hole fixed and the valleys trimmed up cleanly (2 have been trimmed so far and are very uneven on both sides of the valley, and the row of nails either side of the valley are very crooked).
Just wondering if anyone has experienced anything similar, as we are wondering what we’re walking into with this meeting next week.