We recently renovated our kitchen. The r...

Asked by Caitlin on 18-05-2022 08:35:04
Question posted in the General Law category relating to Western Cape

We recently renovated our kitchen. The renovation completed approximately 2 weeks ago and took double the amount of time estimated as this service provider contracted out to unqualified contractors and some aspects of the renovation had to be redone (flooring and tiling). This service providers director was on site numerous times and agreed the work was sub-par and that his employees and contractors should redo it (also have email and Whatsapp message proof). During this time, due to having to set up a temporary kitchen, a pot on the camping stove caught fire and caused damage to property and my husband suffered second degree burns on his hand.

One such aspect that had to be redone is the flooring in the kitchen. The service provider quoted us for (and we resultingly paid for) removing the existing tiles and to "screed floor and topping". On the day, the project manager forgot that we requested a colour topping on the floor (after the screed was already pured on the floor) but he didn't know what product they should use, can I please do some research online and find a product. I found a product from a company (Cemcrete Colour Hardener) and sent it via Whatsapp (still have the messages) to the project manager with the additional message that if this is not the right product, he must let me know and I'll look for something else. The product manager then went to the Cemcrete shop to look at this product and get advice, the resulting advice was that this was not the correct product and recommended something else. He sent us colour swatches of this product via a photo and we selected the colour we wanted. He then purchased this product, came back to our house and asked the contractor to use it. When using this product, I asked the contractor if he has used this product before and he said he hadn't. After 2 attempts to get the floor looking as what is should, the renovation service provider got a professional in to redo the last layers of the floor. The renovation service provider's director has now sent us the invoice for this flooring professional and said that the product that we selected (although we did not - see above) was more expensive than screed and required more time to apply. At no stage were we told this product was not "screed" or "topping", that it would incur an additional cost or saw the quote from the flooring professional. If we had known it would incur an additional cost, we would have said no and asked what the original quote for "screed floor and topping" included. Do we have any legal foot to stand on in refusing to pay this invoice?

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