Making handyman pay for leak repair

[Scott C.]

This may be a stupid question but I wanted to get some feedback from the community. We are rehabbing our third rental property and I have a handyman doing most of the work. One of the things I needed him to do was to fix a ceiling in one of the bedrooms. As he was trying to reattach these ceiling tiles he nicked one of the radiant heat lines in the house. This leak now needs to be fixed for the heat to work again and the repair is going to cost between $400 - $600 dollars because they use stainless steel pipe in the system. Should I make the handyman pay for this repair? His total work on this job is probably going to run me about $1000 so this will pretty much wipe out at least half his take from this job if I make him pay for it.

I have used this guy before and he does good work and is reasonable on his prices. He is also dependable.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Scott

[Account Closed]

I agree it does drive the price. A Cadillac built by unions cost more than a Cadillac built by none union. I think everyone should provide top notch service license or non license.

Joe Gore

[J Scott]

Originally posted by @Brian Mathews:

One thing I get a lot of is if you do it cheaper, I have a lot of jobs coming up I'll use you for. My response is after you use me on a few jobs, we can revisit savings. But I never give it upfront, because that person isn't going to use me again.

I don't understand this reasoning...why wouldn't someone use you again if you have a great price and do great work? I would think they'd use you forever given that... :)

I've been using mostly the same subs for 5+ years now...the reason I use them is that they give me great prices and do great work. In addition, I refer them to everyone I know, so they get even more work. They have essentially no marketing overhead and they almost never risk bidding a job they don't get, as me and my network give them as much work as they want and we very rarely will get other competing bids.

I can completely understand your rationale for not wanted to lower you prices (so it makes sense to say you'll never give a discount), but if you are willing to lower your prices in certain cases, I'd think doing so from the start will be more likely to get you the benefits of that lower price -- repeat business.

Now, if you're just saying that many "investors" will tell you they'll use you on other jobs, but most of them never have any other jobs, then that's just part of your due diligence. When I tell new contractors they can potentially get lots of work from me, I back it up by showing them other projects and letting them talk to the subs of mine who have gotten lots of work from me. It's easy enough to verify if someone is on their first project or if they will likely have plenty more coming up.

[Brian Mathews]

@J Scott

Honestly it has never come to that giving them discounts on jobs down the line. If anything I might have given them a deal on a repair on their personal house. The flippers I've worked with usually do 1 or 2 deals, figure out its not get rich quick, it actually takes work and it costs a lot of money and go back to their day jobs in short order. Or they might do 1 or 2 deals a year to supplement income so it's never an issue. I've found those that want the deal on the front end then promising more work are far from legitimate or don't have a sustainable business model. My longer term customers that I get repeat larger amounts of repeat business are PM's and owners that I deal with. And I've gotten rid of a few that don't like to pay. I'll give them a deal on a personal house repair or may not charge them for a service call on occasion if it's something dumb like a dirty filter or breaker off. You also have to understand something about me. I'm not hurting for work. I have a pretty good clientele who give me referrals and I stay pretty busy. Sure I have slow times, but I'm smart enough to have some money in the bank to cover those. I just got a new customer from a referral. He just bought 30 repo houses and wants me to do inspections and repairs on them. We already talked price, he's right in line with what I charge normally. I think sometimes people think that people in the trades are desperate for work and will take anything they can get. Tossing them a bone. Living job to job. I'm sorry. That's not me so I don't have to give things away. I have people wanting me to do their work, I've built a good reputation.

[J Scott]

Originally posted by @Brian Mathews:

The flippers I've worked with usually do 1 or 2 deals, figure out its not get rich quick, it actually takes work and it costs a lot of money and go back to their day jobs in short order. Or they might do 1 or 2 deals a year to supplement income so it's never an issue. I've found those that want the deal on the front end then promising more work are far from legitimate or don't have a sustainable business model.

That makes perfect sense...