Home

[Peaches McPhee]

---

@Deanie wrote:

I guess the best answer to your question is a question.  What industry bills in advance?  Dentists?  Medical professional? Go through a list and answer the query.  Even contractors building a house take intermittent draws.  If it were me, I would look elsewhere for my needs.

---

I pay in advance for my lawn service and my snow plowing (both seasonal -- pay for the season at the beginning of the season.)  They are both on a contract.

[Doxielover]

I would also find another landscaper. What if they had taken your money and completed NO work or went belly-up? You should NOT have to pay in advance.

[PINKdogWOOD]

Even contract work is not billed in advance.  I would not be paying in advance for this either.

My husband is a landscaper, actually does all phases of 'yard' work ie sales/estimates, installs, water features, irrigation, who knows what his current boss gets him into.

In any event he's been doing this work for 40 years and never has any one of his clients been billed in advance for anything.

As many others indicate, find yourself another company.

[151949]

If you have something in writing that says 4 visits and they did not come 4 times then you can go to the magistrate. However, if you don't have anything in writing - shame on you.

[Desertdi]

Just about everything around here is "half down, remainder on completion".

[Susan Louise]

We are a member of Angie's List...worth every penny of about $12 a year. We have used it numerous times and has been VERY helpful in weeding out the good, bad and ugly contractors and businesses.

We have used the site for our new roof/gutters, fencing, landscaping, new cement patio (just had done in November), kitchen flooring installation, plumber for hooking up our new dishwasher, heating/cooling installation of our new Lennox system 3 yrs ago...and other things.

It has saved us the hassle, headaches of having to deal with less reputable companies/services...and saved money as well...from making sure we got quality service and not having to pay another service to 'fix' a botched job!

In many cases, if one goes the cheapest route...as the saying goes...you get what you pay for...sad, but true...

I highly recommend checking out Angie's List

[mousiegirl]

I just underwent a huge remodeling project last year.  I paid a certain amount at the beginning, around $2,000.00 just to cement the contract, then along the way I was billed for completion of whatever they had been working on, i.e., foundation poured, one check,new electric wiring, one check, etc., etc., and I couldn't just write one check, I had to write a check for each part, drove me crazy.

No way does one pay half down for a construction project as the cost is immense, and contractors aren't allowed to charge for work they have not done.

[PINKdogWOOD]

@Susan Louise  Yes Ms Susan I totally agree.  I too am a member of Angie's list and found my painting contractor who did an excellent job this summer with his crew of 5-6 who painted the exterior from top to bottom there, my home insulators who insulated top to bottom prior to the painters.  I also just signed on with a prof gutter team to clean out the gutters one more time first week in January now that the cedar has dropped all of its needles.

I love Angie's list.  All of my guys have tons of all 'A' ratings, write ups about everything I need to know before I invite anybody in and around my property to do work for me. 

And on Angie's list after all of my workers finished, I jumped on the list to write my reviews too.  I love to read them and I love to write them.

[novamc1]

Every time a contractor tries to get me to pay half down upfront (and they almost all do), he gets a LOT of pushback.  I'm willing to do 20 percent and at most,  one-third, depending on how much I think they need to spend just to purchase materials to start the job

It doesn't matter what their "company policy" happens to be.  I've never had one turn down my proposition regarding the timing and amount of payments.  They might not like it, but they do it.

[Snoopp]

I have had two misses and one hit with Angie's list.  I'm not sure everyone is comfortable with writing reviews.