General contractor invoicing huge management costs after completion

January 10, 2018 8:10 PM

We just completed a medium-sized remodeling project on our house in Illinois, working with a well-reviewed general contractor, doing a design-build. Weeks after work was completed, we were surprised to get an invoice for over ten thousand dollars worth of project management and architect charges. Is this a normal, expected thing?

We had been tracking the costs of the project closely, and thought that the change orders we signed covered all variances from the original estimate, and were expecting a small final bill. The invoice is pretty vague; it doesn't provide any details about who was doing what precisely that they were charging us for, just "overages due to client change order variances". So from our perspective, it seemed like they were concealing costs from us until we had no means to avoid them.

I know for answering specific questions we'd need to have a lawyer look at the contract. But my question is simply... is this normal in the industry? And if so, shouldn't they at least try to provide some substantiation of the numbers?

posted by Hither to Home & Garden (6 answers total)

Best answer: Not in my experience, no. They should have been providing you with invoices showing the contract amount, plus added costs due to change orders, minus payments made.

I've been through a pretty serious conflict with a contractor, so feel free to memail me.
posted by slidell at 9:16 PM on January 10, 2018 [5 favorites]

B.S. absolutely.
posted by Oyéah at 9:23 PM on January 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'd say a 10k bill is well worth a visit to a lawyer. Did you have a lawyer vet the contract?
posted by GeeEmm at 3:25 AM on January 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I have done construction for many years, including remodels. That sounds weird. I would have expected the company to go over the pricing with you before just sending a bill for it. I would talk to a lawyer and see if you are actually on the hook for that cost, or if they are just billing you for something they can't actually claim.

Don't pay a dime you aren't contractually obligated to pay. That is the whole point of the contract.
posted by Oceanic Trench at 6:14 AM on January 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

This is not normal, and I'd read it the same way you are - that he held the overages until the end so you had no choice to accept the work already done. I think they failed to make you aware of increased costs of change orders, and are possibly double-charging you for the project management - one charge for the original estimated PM time (X) included in your quote, and another charge for the "increased" time (X+Y). You need to get an itemized invoice to be sure. The architect charges are probably valid if they are additive, i.e. extra work not included with the estimate, but if change orders replaced originally scoped work with new work, those might be double-charged too.

I just had a five-figure renovation done on my house in Illinois.
posted by juniperesque at 8:06 AM on January 11, 2018

Any overages due to changes should’ve been in the change orders. This is weird.
posted by Monday at 5:26 PM on January 11, 2018