Q: I paid 12 percent of the remodeling cost for a manager to oversee the job, where he did part of the work and there were cost overruns. Was I triple-dipped?— Joe Megeath, Denver
A: Not exactly, though I can see how you might think you had.
Home remodeling projects can become very complex financial affairs, and the tensions that come from the process can be as extreme. No one likes to have their house in disarray no matter how lovely the finished product might be.
The folks at the National Association of the Remodeling Industry tell me that there are a number of things homeowners really need to be on top of if they want to minimize the brain damage and maximize the outcome. The foremost of these is a written agreement.
Most issues with a contract come from the spoken-but-unwritten terms both sides agree to yet recall differently when there’s a dispute. That’s what appears to have happened in your case.
Upfront disclosures are important and that you agreed to a per-job cost for the project oversight is the bottom line whether or not the manager had work to do himself. In that case you could easily feel double-billed by having paid him, essentially, to manage himself.
But as long as you knew he was doing the work, and you agreed to the project fee without exclusion of his own work costs, you are billed correctly, even with overruns.
NARI says it’s not uncommon for a manager to do some work.
Colorado licenses and regulates some industries you’ll see in remodeling: plumbers and electricians primarily. The city of Denver licenses contractors, as do many local jurisdictions. All can be verified on the respective websites.
