Consultant Engineer Overcharging?

Woman Wonder

Hi all,

I've got a €1,030 bill from a Consultant Engineer and it seems a little high.
Basically looking for advice on what the average rate for a Consultant Engineer (B.E) is?

Will try to keep this concise - The Council dug up a private road to lay water pipes. My father has a right of way through this road. The Council did not put the road back the way it was found and do not intend to. My father asked a Consultant Engineer to come out and look at the road and advise on what to do next as it's now impassable.

My dad drove him up to the road, he took photos etc. He spent two hours on site. We recieved a letter from him telling us that the roadway was private ( which we knew already)

And now he's billed us (incl €138 for the photos alone) citing a report he's compiled, which we've not seen. I've not spoken to him yet but I wanted to know the average fees before I speak to him.

Is this the average cost for two hours work?

Any help on this would be much appreciated.

BryanF

Talk to him and then post here with the facts. There are several things here: why didn't you get several quotes? Or ask for progress in hours/ costs? And why presume only two hours work were done just because that's the time the eng was in your presence?
Also you should get a copy of all correspondence and reports- it surprises me this info was not issued. Btw just because you didn't get the result you wanted, doesn't mean the Eng shouldn't get paid.

Woman Wonder

Bryan,

I take your point with getting a few quotes, the situation is my father is elderly and frustrated with the position he's found himself in - someone recommended this Engineer and so he bulldozed on with getting him to call out without getting a quote.

I have never contracted an engineer before so I have no idea what the general fees would be but was surprised by the one letter we received followed by a bill for over €1000. We were hoping for some solid advice from him on what to do next .

I was just after general guidance with regards to fees.

I'm hoping to meet him on Monday and will update.

BryanF

Recommended so probably used to doing similar research and technical reports, presumed insured, chartered, vat registered, office based, driving to site etc
1,000 - 23% vat = 770 - travel exp & correspondence, 700 and 2 days @ 50€ / hr. ( remember thats cheap for an office based business)
And there you go, professional service.

annfield1978

Woman Wonder wrote: »

Hi all,

I've got a €1,030 bill from a Consultant Engineer and it seems a little high.
Basically looking for advice on what the average rate for a Consultant Engineer (B.E) is?

Will try to keep this concise - The Council dug up a private road to lay water pipes. My father has a right of way through this road. The Council did not put the road back the way it was found and do not intend to. My father asked a Consultant Engineer to come out and look at the road and advise on what to do next as it's now impassable.

My dad drove him up to the road, he took photos etc. He spent two hours on site. We recieved a letter from him telling us that the roadway was private ( which we knew already)

And now he's billed us (incl €138 for the photos alone) citing a report he's compiled, which we've not seen. I've not spoken to him yet but I wanted to know the average fees before I speak to him.

Is this the average cost for two hours work?

Any help on this would be much appreciated.

You engaged him to visit the site, after that, what was the brief? To confirm that the road was not to standard and posed a Health and Safety Risk/ Not fit fo purpose? I would have thought a letter would suffice. To be charged for a report that you may not have asked for is a bit much.

If the Consultant was close geographically to you, then travel costs should be low. To be honest I would have thought the fee should be around 500 euro (ex VAT), with an hourly rate of €80-100/ hr depending on the seniority of the Engineer.

Travel - 1 hr
Site Vist - 2 hrs
Letter/ Report Writing - 2hrs

This type of work is similar to a structural house inspection.

You should ask for a fee breakdown. Charging €138 for photographs is a bit cheeky in my opinion. Photos are taken as a record of the site visit , and as they should be digital, there shouldnt be a major expense.

Did you sign a fee agreement form or agree to what the hourly rate would be? If not, then its a matter for you and the Engineer to agree what a reasonable fee is.

The next thing to do is to harass a local councillor/ TD or Engineer in the Local Authority to ensure that the trench is reinstated in accordance with the 'Guidelines for the Opening, Backfilling and Reinstatement of Trenches in Public Roads' [The purple book]

Poor Uncle Tom

The price seems high, but without a breakdown it is hard to judge, the price of the photos is just silly. It's a bit much to ask you to pay for any report you haven't seen a draft of.

Woman Wonder

Thanks all for your input, feeling a little less stressed out about the whole thing.

Firstly, the Engineer will get paid for the work he's done. I just don't want to be ripped off.

The object of getting him out was for him to have a look at the road, and in good faith, advise us on what to do next - A letter or a report, whatever he deemed enough to go to the council with.

Our mistake was not getting a quote, lesson learned. However, we assumed it wouldn't be that much work as it's a 150m stretch of roadway.

He called out (60km round trip). Took photos and measured the road width with a tape. He didn't use sight levels or anything like that. I'd purchased all necessary folios and maps from landregistry.com and maps from osi.com - he has these.

Two weeks later we received a letter stating he'd been in touch with the roads dept in the council and the road was a private road and wasn't their responsibility. This we had already discussed with him, we knew it was a private road and the Water Dept carried out the works and are the point of contact there. We were waiting for the results of the survey. The next contact was the bill:

"I refer to my inspection and report.

I haven't heard from you in some time. In the meantime I enclose my survey and report fee.

Attendance at site, Inspection of passageway, Inspection of maps, preparation of maps, Photographs and Report, Correspondence with solicitor etc.
Fee 675.00
Expenses incl travel, postage, telephone, photocopying, photocopy maps etc. 55.00
2 sets of photographs, 46 in each set, 92 @€;1.50 138.00

Sub total 868.00
VAT @ 23% 199.64
Total 1067.64



Bearing in mind, I can't tell you how detailed the report is as I haven't seen it.

Couldn't get him on the phone on Friday, will try again Monday

engineermike

Hi,
It does seem excessive - but with out seeing the content of the report its hard to judge.
The charge for photo's is off the wall if you ask me - I'd charge for specialist equipment / hire charges / or testing of samples, but charging for photo's ???
The mind boggles - if he used his level would he charge you each time it was used ?
The photo's demonstrate the content of the report, why on earth you'd charge for digital images i just don't know.
I think the lesson is ask for a fee proposal in advance with any professional, and also get multiple quotes as you would with a builder / trades person.
mike f

Woman Wonder

Hi all,

I spoke to the engineer on the phone during the week. I told him that I thought it was excessive to charge for photos and a report we've not seen. In fairness, he apologized for not sending out the report. I went into more detail about the outcome of his work and he got a bit argumentative so I said I would wait until I got the report and get back in touch with him.

He has posted out a copy of the report. It's one page long and seems to focus on the right of way/private road issue. There is a lack of opinion on the structural damage done to the road. There are 46 digital images attached, with a two page legend. There are also two photocopys of the land registry maps we gave him, he has marked out the road on these. In fairness, the photos are good and they are of the whole length of road on which the water services work was carried out on - not just the section we use for access.

He concluded we should take the matter up with the water services but doesn't say why, or give us a solid reason why we should.

The scope of the job was not clearly defined to him. I take this point, but we were at a loss as to where to go with this and presumed with his professional experience he would be able to define what we should do.

I genuinely still don't think the report merits €675.

I can email a zip file of the report (redacted) to anyone who would like to have a look. Maybe private message me an email address.

Thanks everyone.

engineermike

Hi,
Had a look at the report, not much to it really. In my estimation a figure of at least 2 /3's of what you paid would be an acceptable figure ( at the top end of the price scale / taking into account location - travel etc.).
€138 for photo's is something i've not heard of. Chatting the other day over coffee with some of the top consultant specialist engineers in the country, the subject came up about fee's - So I asked the lads did any of them ever charge for digital photos ? - the question was met with blank stares & comments of "yeah rite".

Unless there are components of the report missing such as gps survey / gis information for the roadway, i think the price is a tad excessive.
Regards,
Mike f:rolleyes:

razor8

any outcome wonder woman, just resurrected this old post?

Poor Uncle Tom

OP hasn't posted since but since this was a spam thread to start with I'm locking it.