30k to renovate a 3 bed bungalow

morrga

Need some expert opinion on renovation costs and if they look reasonable.

A house is currently been sold and the profits are been divided up amongst the two inherited owners. Owner A renovated the house 3/4 years ago with the approval of Owner B (a silent partner).

Owner A is now stating that the cost of renovations was 30,000. The house is selling for 145k and is a very modest bog standard 3 bed bungalow in rural Ireland so he is looking for his share refunded.

Breakdown of costs are as follows and receipts are in place for everything except the labour work:

Materials purchased from 3 different Builders Providers 5,000
Bathroom Tiling 4,000 (one bathroom)
Labour man (mate) cash in hand 8.5 days work 4,000 (no receipts for building materials he bought as well totalling 1,000)
New Water Pump 4,200
New Kitchen and Furniture 4,000
Heating and Electrical Re-Wiring 5,300
Garden Lawn Relaid 2,000
Ad Hoc Materials and Other Jobs 1,500

Any opinion?

Bonzo Delaney

morrga wrote: »

Need some expert opinion on renovation costs and if they look reasonable.

A house is currently been sold and the profits are been divided up amongst the two inherited owners. Owner A renovated the house 3/4 years ago with the approval of Owner B (a silent partner).

Owner A is now stating that the cost of renovations was 30,000. The house is selling for 145k and is a very modest bog standard 3 bed bungalow in rural Ireland so he is looking for his share refunded.

Breakdown of costs are as follows and receipts are in place for everything except the labour work:

Materials purchased from 3 different Builders Providers 5,000
Bathroom Tiling 4,000 (one bathroom)
Labour man (mate) cash in hand 8.5 days work 4,000 (no receipts for building materials he bought as well totalling 1,000)
New Water Pump 4,200
New Kitchen and Furniture 4,000
Heating and Electrical Re-Wiring 5,300
Garden Lawn Relaid 2,000
Ad Hoc Materials and Other Jobs 1,500

Any opinion?

Well if there's receipts for everything it's fairly cut and dry.
With regards the Labour and unreciepted materials find out what was bought it's not too hard to get a cost on that now , prob take off 7% of a price increase in the last few years certain materials prob 12% e.g. pir insulation.
Labour cash in hand that's a tricky one as it's one persons word against another but to be fair in rural counties 3 -4 years ago even for a tradesman of the record 150e a day would be generous. A few today would still bite your hand off for it.

Some costs do seem a bit bloated but depending on quality of materials could be justified .
If there's a dispute prob an independent Quantity surveyor to iron things out could be engaged

morrga

Thanks for taking time to get back to me.

The first idea was to see if people thought the cost of renovations was reasonable. It was not done to a high spec.

The second piece of the jigsaw which I am trying to avoid as its a conspiracy theory but Owner A also owns (sole owner) and rents out an apartment in a nearby city. He couldn't have renovated both places and the lumped the costs on the one house knowing Owner B is a silent owner?

Or if you think the costs on the bungalow are reasonable then I know I am putting 1 and 1 together and getting 5.

looksee

There really is not enough information. You could easily spend 30k renovating a house, but are we talking roofing, insulation, new floors, doors, windows, rewiring, replastering? Was the bathroom re-fitted as well as tiled?

Surely 4,000 for 8.5 days work is around €470 a day?

€6000+ for materials that were not tiles, electrical, heating, kitchen, water pump etc - what were they?

Tiling one bathroom, even if including tiles etc is expensive at 4,000, at least double what it should be. Was it actually just tiling?

Those 4,000's keep coming up don't they. Like a nice round number. What kind of water pump was it?

Kitchen sounds ok.

Heating and electric, not enough information to know.

Lawn - how big? Sounds a lot for an average urban back lawn.

morrga

looksee wrote: »

There really is not enough information. You could easily spend 30k renovating a house, but are we talking roofing, insulation, new floors, doors, windows, rewiring, replastering? Was the bathroom re-fitted as well as tiled?

Surely 4,000 for 8.5 days work is around €470 a day?

€6000+ for materials that were not tiles, electrical, heating, kitchen, water pump etc - what were they?

Tiling one bathroom, even if including tiles etc is expensive at 4,000, at least double what it should be. Was it actually just tiling?

Those 4,000's keep coming up don't they. Like a nice round number. What kind of water pump was it?

Kitchen sounds ok.

Heating and electric, not enough information to know.

Lawn - how big? Sounds a lot for an average urban back lawn.

Sorry Labour man charged €2,500 labour and €1,500 for materials with no invoices.

They just tiled the new bathroom and re-wired the whole house. The lawn is a modest lawn size for a country bungalow, not exactly huge.

Water pump was a submersible pump. There was an existing well there so I think the old one was no longer usable and a new pump installed in its place. There was a grant available for that up to 2k which has yet to be disclosed by Owner A, this adds to the trust issues. The cost of the water pump we think is reasonable aside from the water grant non disclosure.

Bathroom tiling included 800 for installation and 3,200 for materials. There were two separate tiling companies invoiced which doesn't make sense for such a small bathroom.


Re materials its hard to gauge where it all went as there are just reems and reems of receipts with hundreds of parts and bits and bobs. There is so much material its hard to fathom its all for the one house. Insulation was done but the roof was left un-touched.

elperello

It is a business relationship.
Put aside any other influences and treat it as such.

If you feel you need more detail don't be afraid to ask down to the last item.
You need to check the receipts against exactly what was done.

Who managed the project?

morrga

elperello wrote: »

It is a business relationship.
Put aside any other influences and treat it as such.

If you feel you need more detail don't be afraid to ask down to the last item.
You need to check the receipts against exactly what was done.

Who managed the project?

Its a family relationship and not really a business relationship. Owner A managed the whole process from spending to renovating whilst Owner B stayed silent throughout. Its only now the total spend have been question giving how much they are.

I have spent hours piece mealing the invoices together and sifting through them all. I am not an expert on cost analysis of renovations but do have a keen eye for finances and expenditure. Reocurring themes kept popping up such as why is he buying this again after buying it previously etc. Why were 5 hardware stores used. Why were 2 tiling companies used etc.

I think the best thing to do is get a QS to take a look at the property.

glen123

Some of the figures look inflated. Well, considering jobs were cash in hand, all of it looks inflated to me, to be honest. Not long ago we finished renovating 200 sq m 2 storey house building it from scratch more or less with my husband doing 50% of all the work himself, so this is what we spent on tiling one of our bathrooms.
 If we take my bathroom as an example, which is 5m x 5m.
Floor area => 25 sq m (here we put wood effect tiles which with discounts for quantity purchased worked out at around 15eur per sq m)
Wall area => 70 sq m (tiles worked out around 12eur per sq m)
So tiles total => 375 + 840 + bags of adhesive you can get for 10-15eur depending where and if it's cash,, 4-5 bags of it => another 100eur
So, materials total = > 1315eur => but ok, let's round up to 1500eur. But if the floor area is smaller, it's even less.
 
So, we've spent 1500eur on materials, if the remaining 2500eur went on labour, we are talking about 2500eur/95sq m = 26eur he paid per sql m for labour?? Way too much for a cash job. 15eur per sq m max it should have been, especially if the quality was average. At 15eur per sq m => 1425eur. 
 
So, if the bathroom is as big as above, at least an extra 1k is hiding there, but I'd say, probably 2k))
 
Also, what is "Ad Hoc Materials and Other Jobs 1,500"?? If one knows it’s 1500eur, then he must know what “other jobs” they were.
 
I think, he doubled everything. But this is just my own personal opinion.

elperello

morrga wrote: »

Its a family relationship and not really a business relationship. Owner A managed the whole process from spending to renovating whilst Owner B stayed silent throughout. Its only now the total spend have been question giving how much they are.

I have spent hours piece mealing the invoices together and sifting through them all. I am not an expert on cost analysis of renovations but do have a keen eye for finances and expenditure. Reocurring themes kept popping up such as why is he buying this again after buying it previously etc. Why were 5 hardware stores used. Why were 2 tiling companies used etc.

I think the best thing to do is get a QS to take a look at the property.

I always think that when money and property are involved it's business.

Owner A will have put in quite a bit of time in managing the project which has increased the value of the property for both partners.
Just as well to bear this in mind.

By all means question the various costs but do allow for problems that may have arisen during the renovations. Things like that will be hard to evaluate.

If engaging a QS be careful to agree fees in advance.

blast06

If house worth €145K now then 4 yrs ago lets say it was worth 110K.
So, owner A is claiming he spent over 3.5% of the value of the property at the time on re-tiling a single bathroom :eek:

pilly

blast06 wrote:

If house worth €145K now then 4 yrs ago lets say it was worth 110K. So, owner A is claiming he spent over 3.5% of the value of the property at the time on re-tiling a single bathroom

It's not just a bathroom, don't know how you figured that?

blast06

pilly wrote: »

It's not just a bathroom, don't know how you figured that?

"Bathroom Tiling 4,000 (one bathroom)" ???

bduffy

blast06 wrote: »

"Bathroom Tiling 4,000 (one bathroom)" ???

If one (brother/sister?) organised everything without objection then the other (brother/sister?) really can't start arguing after the fact. It will lead to rows (but it sounds like it already has if you are going through the receipts in detail).
Round it down .....argue that one gets 60k and the other gets 85k......my few cents.
Life is too short for rows that go on for years.....

sword1

You are going to have to weigh up the pros and cons of going ahead with this. It sounds like it could be 25k anyway. If they are catching you for 5 it is 2.5 k of yours. Maybe less after tax depending on the details. If they were involved in doing up the property it is fair enough if they get something for their time also. I could be way off here but write down the most you think you can gain from following this and how much will be lost from the breakdown in the relationship with the other party and families etc. There is also a good chance you will end up with no extra money and a breakdown in the relationship

looksee

OP, your way of laying out the costings doesn't really make any sense, and the costings themselves don't make a lot of sense. However, apparently this all happened 3/4 years ago, and you played no part in it. Has the house been empty since?

I rather think if the whole place had been re-wired there would have been plastering and painting also. I don't think we are getting the full story and I don't think you have understood the whole story yourself. As the others have said, its a bit late to be trying to sort it at this stage. You chose to trust the other party and not trouble yourself, its hardly reasonable to start demanding accounting at this stage.

You might be as well to put it down to experience and accept the other party's version of events.