How we work, and the payment schedule
At tens of thousands of euros nobody is buying a quotation. What is being bought is a process: the certainty that someone turns up, that the job gets finished, and that the bill at the end is the bill from the start. So it is set out here in full, down to the moment each share of the contract sum (aanneemsom) changes hands.
A quotation within five working days
After the survey at your house you have a quotation with a fixed price within five working days. If we are not going to make that, you hear so on day four, with a new date.
A fixed price for the agreed work
What the quotation says, stands. If the work changes, that is meerwerk, and it goes in writing with a price attached before it is carried out. Never afterwards, never verbally.
One point of contact from start to handover
From the first day on site you have one site manager you can call directly on working days. The same person walks the handover through with you.
From the first phone call to handover
Nine steps. Each one states who is there, how long it takes and what you pay at that moment. On the steps where money actually changes hands, the amount is set in the heading face under "What you pay" and the step number is filled in. Handover is called oplevering in Dutch, and it is the step your contract will refer to.
Step 1: Phone call
You call, or leave a callback request. We ask about the type of work, the year the house was built, the place and roughly what you have in mind. By the end of that call you know whether this is work we take on and whether your budget and your plan meet. If they do not, we say so there and then.
- Who is there
- You and the work planner
- How long
- 15 minutes, within one working day
- What you pay
- Nothing
Step 2: Survey at your house
We come round, measure up, look in the crawl space (kruipruimte) and the loft, and assess the foundation, the structure and the connections to the existing house. For a loft conversion or a structural opening we establish whether a structural engineer (constructeur) is needed. You hear on the spot which price range is realistic.
- Who is there
- You and the site manager
- How long
- 45 to 90 minutes, within two weeks
- What you pay
- Nothing
Step 3: Quotation with a fixed price
You receive a quotation (offerte) with a fixed price for the work as described, a list of what is explicitly not included, and provisional sums (stelposten) for items you choose yourself. No figure in it is an estimate: what the quotation says stands, as long as the work does not change.
- Who is there
- We supply it, you read it
- How long
- Within five working days of the survey
- What you pay
- Nothing
Step 4: Design, calculation and permit
Only where the work requires it. Drawings, a structural calculation, and the permit application (omgevingsvergunning, the Dutch building permit) with the municipality of Stichtse Vecht or De Ronde Venen. If the permit is refused, the project stops and you pay for this phase only, at an amount stated on the quotation in advance.
- Who is there
- Draughtsman, structural engineer and the municipality
- How long
- 4 to 12 weeks, depending on the procedure
- What you pay
- The cost of this phase, named separately on the quotation
Step 5: Planning and start date
The start date is fixed in writing, with a week by week plan and the days on which it will be loud or dusty. Materials with long lead times are ordered in this phase, so the job does not come to a halt halfway through waiting for a window frame.
- Who is there
- You and the work planner
- How long
- 1 to 2 weeks
- What you pay
- Nothing
Step 6: Work starts on site
Day one: fencing, floor protection, a place to unload, and demolition. From this day there is one site manager who is your point of contact and whom you can call directly on working days.
- Who is there
- The site manager and the crew
- How long
- Day 1
- What you pay
- First instalment: 30 per cent
Step 7: Shell complete
Foundation, structure, brickwork, roof and window frames are in place and the work is wind and watertight. This is the moment you can stand in the new space for the first time, and the last moment changes are possible without demolition.
- Who is there
- The site manager walks it through with you
- How long
- Depends on the job, usually after 3 to 6 weeks
- What you pay
- Second instalment: 30 per cent
Step 8: Services and fit-out
Electrics, water, heating and ventilation are installed and tested. Then plastering, floors, tiling and painting. This phase is quiet but long; it is the phase in which people get impatient and in which the weekly plan matters most.
- Who is there
- Installer, plasterer and fit-out crew
- How long
- 2 to 5 weeks
- What you pay
- Third instalment: 30 per cent
Step 9: Handover and snagging list
We walk the work through together and write down everything you see, however small. In Dutch this step is the oplevering and the list is the opleverlijst. That list is cleared within fifteen working days. Only once every point on it is signed off does the last instalment fall due.
- Who is there
- You and the site manager
- How long
- 1 to 2 hours, points cleared within 15 working days
- What you pay
- Final instalment: 10 per cent, after the snagging list is cleared
The payment schedule
Nothing is paid in advance before work starts.
Each block in the bar is as wide as its share of the contract sum (aanneemsom). The pale block on the right is the final 10 per cent: it only falls due after handover (oplevering), once every point on the snagging list has been dealt with.
| Instalment | Share | When |
|---|---|---|
| First instalment | 30% | The day work starts on site |
| Second instalment | 30% | Shell complete, the work is wind and watertight |
| Third instalment | 30% | Services tested and fit-out complete |
| Final instalment | 10% | After handover, once every snagging point is cleared |
| Together | 100% |
The cost of drawings, the structural calculation and the permit sits outside these four instalments and is named separately on the quotation, so you can see what you would be out of pocket if a permit is unexpectedly refused. The total being paid in instalments is the contract sum, called the aanneemsom in your contract.
The conversation nobody has up front
Variation work, called meerwerk: how it arises and how it is recorded
Meerwerk is the Dutch word for work added to a contract after it is signed, and it is the reason building projects have a bad name here. Not because it exists, but because it usually only becomes visible on the final invoice. Below is where it comes from, how it runs with us, and what is explicitly never counted as meerwerk.
- You change something
- A different layout, an extra socket, a more expensive tile. This is the only category of meerwerk you control, and the only one that can be avoided up front by closing off the choices at the design stage.
- Something comes to light
- An old chimney flue inside the wall that has to go, rot in the joists under a bathroom floor, or a foundation that turns out to be something other than the drawing says. In this area, this is the category most meerwerk comes out of.
- The municipality or the engineer sets a requirement
- A heavier steel beam, extra fire-resisting finishing, an adjustment to get the permit through. We include whatever is known in advance in the quotation, but a requirement that only appears at assessment cannot be priced beforehand.
How it runs
- Work on that element stops the moment something comes to light.
- You receive a price within two working days, with the effect on the planning stated.
- It is only carried out after your written approval.
- The amount is added to the next instalment, not to a separate invoice afterwards.
What is never meerwerk
- An arithmetic error in our own quotation.
- Extra hours because our planning was wrong or a crew turned up late.
- Removal of building waste and leaving the work area clean.
- Protecting existing floors, stairs and window frames.
- Repairing damage we caused during the work.
- A second visit from the structural engineer if the first calculation was wrong.
Every amount you pay, you have seen on paper beforehand. After handover no invoice arrives that you did not already know about.
What goes wrong, and how it is then arranged
On a job that runs for months, something goes wrong. The question is not whether, but what happens then. Below are the answers to the five questions that are really about that.
- Who do you call during the build?
- The site manager for your project, directly on his mobile, on working days between 07:00 and 18:00. Not a general number, and not an email address where the answer takes two days.
- What if something is damaged during the work?
- Damage we cause, we repair, and that is not meerwerk. At the start we record the existing condition of floors, window frames and adjoining rooms in photographs, so that afterwards there is no argument about what was already there.
- What if the work overruns?
- You hear as soon as we know, with a new date, and not at the end of the original planning. The weekly plan goes out to you every Friday, including in the weeks when nothing unusual happens.
- How long after handover can you still come back?
- For twelve months after handover (oplevering) you can call about the work carried out and we come and look. That is a commitment on top of your statutory rights under Dutch law, and it is written into the order confirmation.
- What happens to the snagging points?
- Everything you point out at handover goes on a single list and that list is cleared within fifteen working days. You pay the last ten per cent of the contract sum only once every point is signed off.
Starting at step one
Step one is a fifteen minute phone call and it costs nothing. By the end of it you know whether this is work we take on and whether your plan and your budget meet.