Local trader payment terms

[seemster]

Is it usual to be asked to pay one third of a quoted cost upfront?

It's a company that's frequently recommended on here so part of me thinks, "oh well, those are the terms," and part of me thinks, "that's an awful lot of money to be giving away when nothing has been done..."

I offered to pay a smaller amount in order to secure the date, as I guess there might be some customers who book and then cancel and I can see that there needs to be 2-way protection - but I was told it has to be one third.

Anyway, I need the job done and so I am going to pay it tonight, just waiting for confirmation that it will be refundable if *they* cancel (2-way protection!) but just curious what others think?

Would prefer not to mention the actual service provider as I don't want this to be considered negative in any way, I still trust they will do a good job given all the recommendations.

[HelenG]

Be careful seemster - all the things you read about this kind of question say pay at the end of the job, not at the start. Every tradesman I have used on the forum has operated on that basis and I have not had any problems. Good luck...

[karen1]

If I'm doing a job for someone and there are materials involved I will ask for 25% upfront

but they will have a contract stating terms of business and a receipt for the payment.

[tomskip]

We have recently had a similar experience and won't be using the service again. But, obviously fair enough to pay for materials up front.

[tllm2]

We've had a very bad experience using someone who is regularly recommended on the forum. God knows how/why from our encounter ..........

They similarly asked for a 1/3 of the cost upfront in cash before they'd done a single thing, which should have set alarm bells ringing, but we took misplaced comfort from the reviews for him on here. We then struggled to get receipts for the money paid or receipts/proof of the materials purchased, ended up with a truely awful end result, which we were in dispute over for weeks and was costly to put right

Please tread carefully, although it may sounds really obvious please do make sure you have a paper trail for everything, receipts (for payments made and material purchased if required), a staged payment plan if necessary, a clear from the start measures of progress and be crystal clear about the standard of finish expected.