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I’m an architect who is in the last stages of a punchlist with a very picky client. Granted, the contractor’s workmanship isn’t perfect, but it’s decent and certainly a BARGAIN for the price the client is paying. (They took the lowest bidder, who was about $150K lower on a $500K house than the next highest out of 3 — and I warned them at the beginning that they should not expect a super-high level of craftsmanship out of this particular contractor, whom I’ve worked with in the past.)
The contractor has been back at least 4 times to try to finish the punchlist, but never seems to quite satisfy the client, and now he is digging his heels in and doesn’t want to go back. (Nor do any of his subs.) I can’t much blame him, but I don’t seem to be able to convince the client that they are getting a reasonable product for the price they’ve paid, and should just relax. They seem to want better than probably the contractor can realistically deliver. (We’re talking things on the order of slightly cloudy discolorations on clear finished trim at a few puttied nail heads which show up under certain lighting conditions, a couple of hairline grout cracks, marring on cabinet drawers that you can see only if you pull out the drawer, and a few carpet treads that have a pattern ever so slightly out of line. But nothing that you would likely see unless you were looking for it.) The client is holding maybe $5K at this point, and doesn’t want to release any of it until the issues are addressed. I do believe that these nitpicks are really bothering them, that is, I don’t think this is a strategy to cheat the contractor out of some money. But I’m at a loss as to how to help the contractor, since I can’t really find any quality standards to use as an objective source to convince the client about issues this subtle. (I’ve tried the NAHB book -Ha!) Any suggestions?
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I'm an architect who is in the last stages of a punchlist with a very picky client. Granted, the contractor's workmanship isn't perfect, but it's decent and certainly a BARGAIN for the price the client is paying. (They took the lowest bidder, who was about $150K lower on a $500K house than the next highest out of 3 -- and I warned them at the beginning that they should not expect a super-high level of craftsmanship out of this particular contractor, whom I've worked with in the past.)
The contractor has been back at least 4 times to try to finish the punchlist, but never seems to quite satisfy the client, and now he is digging his heels in and doesn't want to go back. (Nor do any of his subs.) I can't much blame him, but I don't seem to be able to convince the client that they are getting a reasonable product for the price they've paid, and should just relax. They seem to want better than probably the contractor can realistically deliver. (We're talking things on the order of slightly cloudy discolorations on clear finished trim at a few puttied nail heads which show up under certain lighting conditions, a couple of hairline grout cracks, marring on cabinet drawers that you can see only if you pull out the drawer, and a few carpet treads that have a pattern ever so slightly out of line. But nothing that you would likely see unless you were looking for it.) The client is holding maybe $5K at this point, and doesn't want to release any of it until the issues are addressed. I do believe that these nitpicks are really bothering them, that is, I don't think this is a strategy to cheat the contractor out of some money. But I'm at a loss as to how to help the contractor, since I can't really find any quality standards to use as an objective source to convince the client about issues this subtle. (I've tried the NAHB book -Ha!) Any suggestions?