Paying contractor for bids?

[Matt Bell]

Hello BP Crew,

We recently had a contractor in Montgomery, AL go look at some potential properties we were going to bid on and one we had a contract on.  He never mentioned charging us for anything and we just asked him for an initial ball park estimate on the houses that were not under contract so we knew if it might even be worth our time to bid.  The house we had a contract on fell through after which the contractor sent us a bill for $1,100+ for the time he spent preparing the bids.  Granted, we only received 2 bids but he claims he worked on 7 (we sent an initial list of 7 properties).  He is charging $65/hr to put bids together.  Has anyone else encountered this?

I spoke to two other contractors in that town and they said they never get to charge for bids.  If someone doesn't hire them after a few bids they might decline to give future bids but they never get to charge.  I finally got the contractor on the phone and he admitted that he normally doesn't charge for bids but "we are different."  The only difference we could identify is that we are remote investors.  I think he is just trying to take advantage of the situation.  

If I am way off and some contractors do charge for bids - please let me know what a standard rate would be.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Matt

[Randy E.]

Some contractors charge for bids.  I can imagine that many would charge for an series of bids when most of the bids resulted in no potential for a job because the client did not own the property and did not purchase the property.

On the other hand, the guy should have told you up front about the charge.  On the other other hand, I wouldn't dream of asking a contractor to give me a series of bids like that without expecting to compensate him for his time.  I think both investor and contractor contributed to a substantial misunderstanding of how each thought the relationship was going to work.

The guy isn't a tool or a jerk.  He's just someone who realized the series of good jobs he had lined up was just a series of expected free estimates that would probably never turn into actual jobs.  And he wanted to ensure he got something for all the time, expertise, and effort he was asked to provide.