Unilateral price increases from garden room company

monkeylittle

monkeylittle

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Like many, last year (Oct 2020) I purchased a garden room to provide extra space at home. Naturally, the installation of that garden room was delayed due to COVID and in the interim there has been significant inflation on building materials.

Last week I received an email from the supplier communicating a 5% price increase and I'm curious as to whether this legitimate practice. From my perspective I received a quote, signed off on the purchase and paid a deposit.

I'm also concerned that there are subsequent increases prior to the installation date which is now estimated to be early November. From their perspective they probably have a large backlog to work through and can probably use this practice to find the top of the market for their product.

There are no terms and conditions associated with the quote as it essentially details the build, the cost, deposit to be paid.
 
same product, dunno if it's the same company, once a deposit was paid, any further price increases were not your problem. You have a contract to supply something at agreed price. Check T&C's if they are permitted to not honour or increase the price of same. I'd be surprised if they were.
 
PebbleBeach2020 said:
same product, dunno if it's the same company, once a deposit was paid, any further price increases were not your problem. You have a contract to supply something at agreed price. Check T&C's if they are permitted to not honour or increase the price of same. I'd be surprised if they were.
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Part of my confusion is that there are no terms and conditions which speak to this. My assumption would be that they would then have no latitude to vary the agreed price.

I signed off on what is essentially:
Building construction, materials, finishes etc.
Extra specifications
Site clearance and additional works
Quotation
Payment terms.

The only additional terms include: "Quotation is valid for 30 days from the date of issue."

The quotation was signed and deposit paid within that 30 day period so I took at as a binding commitment.

Can I ask in your situation how the company responded to your push back?
 
monkeylittle said:
Like many, last year (Oct 2020) I purchased a garden room to provide extra space at home. Naturally, the installation of that garden room was delayed due to COVID and in the interim there has been significant inflation on building materials.

Last week I received an email from the supplier communicating a 5% price increase and I'm curious as to whether this legitimate practice. From my perspective I received a quote, signed off on the purchase and paid a deposit.

I'm also concerned that there are subsequent increases prior to the installation date which is now estimated to be early November. From their perspective they probably have a large backlog to work through and can probably use this practice to find the top of the market for their product.

There are no terms and conditions associated with the quote as it essentially details the build, the cost, deposit to be paid.
Click to expand...
How is this going since your initial post?
I have heard a lot of similar stories, and it is very frustrating for the buyer. Not only is construction delayed, but by the time the job is done the cost of materials is higher. Some materials cost four times more than pre-pandemic prices.
We have two projects on order, a fitted kitchen and new windows, with prices agreed since the start of this year.
The way we see it, the builders and suppliers have no choice but to increase their prices, since their raw materials cost a lot more, and they are paying their staff a lot more to keep them.
Even though we have a contract with both builders, we do not want to pull out of either because of a price increase that has been forced on the builders. Both companies have an excellent rep. Legally I think they are on strong ground because the performance of the contract in both cases has been frustrated by external forces (the price increases) over which they have no control.
Since their competitors are affected by the same changes, and it would mean going back to a long queue if we pulled out of the contract, it makes sense for us to stay with the present companies, suck it up and pay the extra.
 
L_earner said:
How is this going since your initial post?
I have heard a lot of similar stories, and it is very frustrating for the buyer. Not only is construction delayed, but by the time the job is done the cost of materials is higher. Some materials cost four times more than pre-pandemic prices.
We have two projects on order, a fitted kitchen and new windows, with prices agreed since the start of this year.
The way we see it, the builders and suppliers have no choice but to increase their prices, since their raw materials cost a lot more, and they are paying their staff a lot more to keep them.
Even though we have a contract with both builders, we do not want to pull out of either because of a price increase that has been forced on the builders. Both companies have an excellent rep. Legally I think they are on strong ground because the performance of the contract in both cases has been frustrated by external forces (the price increases) over which they have no control.
Since their competitors are affected by the same changes, and it would mean going back to a long queue if we pulled out of the contract, it makes sense for us to stay with the present companies, suck it up and pay the extra.
Click to expand...

The garden room company insisted they were increasing the price so we withdrew from the purchase and they returned my deposit. They obviously had a large backlog of buyers so could easily ratchet the prices across this backlog to reduce it to a manageable size. Having already accepted changes to the specification I took the view that accepting an increase in price (this was a standard product, not a custom build) would leave me open to further increases and changes to the specification and I did not trust the company was acting in good faith.
 
monkeylittle said:
The garden room company insisted they were increasing the price so we withdrew from the purchase and they returned my deposit. They obviously had a large backlog of buyers so could easily ratchet the prices across this backlog to reduce it to a manageable size. Having already accepted changes to the specification I took the view that accepting an increase in price (this was a standard product, not a custom build) would leave me open to further increases and changes to the specification and I did not trust the company was acting in good faith.
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That must have been hard, but if you didn't trust them, you are probably better off doing what you did.
 
monkeylittle said:
The garden room company insisted they were increasing the price so we withdrew from the purchase and they returned my deposit. They obviously had a large backlog of buyers so could easily ratchet the prices across this backlog to reduce it to a manageable size. Having already accepted changes to the specification I took the view that accepting an increase in price (this was a standard product, not a custom build) would leave me open to further increases and changes to the specification and I did not trust the company was acting in good faith.
Click to expand...
And do you now have a garden room?
 
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