Excessive repair bill. Do I have any options?

[BuildingBlocks]

A property of mine had excessive rain fall which ran through part of the house.

As the whole suburb was affected we couldn't get the usual carpet cleaner and after going through the phone book needed to go with someone new.

The company said that they would be able to dry and clean the carpets (bringing in blowers/dehumidifiers etc), however a quote was not requested and I approved for the work to go ahead as it was quite urgent to prevent further damage <--- I should definitely know better than this

The work was completed about a month ago and the agency have just received the invoice, for $2500. This included apparently about $1000 of equipment hire, the equipment was apparently hired and used for 3 days to dry things out.

They apparently also pulled up the carpets and dried and reset the underlay (I am still waiting on a copy of the invoice to review).

They have gone overkill on the work completed and taken me for a bit of a ride with effectively a blank check for the work.

Drying out the carpets with the normal guy would have been about $500, if he could do the work. Taking this into account we were expecting around the same number, maybe up to $1000.

Of course if I knew that it was going to be this much I would have just replaced all of the carpets rather than bothered with drying and cleaning.

Do I have any options?

edit: Forgot to mention, I am checking out my insurance options too.

Cheers,
Anthony.

 

[BuildingBlocks]

Update already, my NRMA Landlord Policy has stood up the test (so far) and they have said that they will pay out "fair and reasonable costs", even though the work has already been completed.

Won't know how much they will cover until I send in the invoice, but I am at least much happier now.

 

[BMan]

yeah dont pay it
question them how it took 3 whole days to dry the carpet with the hired machinery

i think they took advantage of the situation where everyone needed there carpets dried

id still try to get a lower price as your going to pay the extra anyway

 

[Aaron_C]

Hmm Bill Shock is quite common in this area. Maybe some of the lawyers here can comment but I wouldn't pay for something that I haven't agreed to. Otherwise they can just invoice you for whatever amount they feel like.

 

[Propertunity]

Next time just call the insurer and let them handle the whole thing from the start. We had something similar a few years ago. First call was to CGU - that's the only call I made.

 

[BuildingBlocks]

Next time just call the insurer and let them handle the whole thing from the start. We had something similar a few years ago. First call was to CGU - that's the only call I made.

When similar happened about a year ago the normal guy came in and did the work for around $500. As I stupidly figured it would be about the same this time I was going to avoid going through insurance as it wouldn't be worth it.

My next play will be to see what NRMA say about the invoice total, if they don't believe that it is "fair and reasonable", then that will give me excellent ammunition to fire back to the cleaning company,via the PM.

This was probably the first time ever where I hadn't requested the quote. Lesson has been learned!

 

[vaughan]

Next time just call the insurer and let them handle the whole thing from the start. We had something similar a few years ago. First call was to CGU - that's the only call I made.

Yes me too for "just call the insurer".

Had a flexible water hose burst while we were away on holidays, almost 2 weeks of hot water spurting up from the hand basin in the bathroom (yay gas continuous hot water). No flood damage because it went straight down the drain in the floor, instead we came home to find the house filled with a 1.5 metre rain cloud. Seriously, rain in our house. Condensation running down the walls.

One call to NRMA and it was fixed, they managed everything which was great because I was pretty hysterical.

Gas bill was only a couple of hundred dollars extra.

 

[Doovalacky]

Those flexible hoses don't seem to last long. I have now had 3 incidents in different houses from splits/pinpoint leaks by ones installed "professionally".

Worse was my own house the floor drain does not work too well so it started to flood the hall and bedrooms. I'm now replacing them every 5 years or so.