What is the name of your state? WA
My husband and I are building a house with a very reputable company. They have been responsive and the house is going very well so far. We have 2 loans for the house and the first has been exhausted. So, to avoid starting the second loan, we've asked the builder to bill us directly for the remaining work. The bank lender has not asked for receipts/invoices in the past from the builder, all they do is verify that the work has been completed.
My husband met with the girl that requests the funds from the banks today. When he asked her about obtaining the receipts from the subcontractors when she requests funds from us she got a little nervous. Upon a quick examination while she was out of the rooom, he noticed that (for example) our gargage door was budgeted $750, but was only billed for $745. The builder requested the full $750 from the bank. The discrepancy itself is what makes us nervous. We do have some things that we know are over budget that we are going to pay for out of pocket (like countertops), but it could be that the things that are under would've covered the total overage. It's like they take whatever was budgeted or the overage, but never anything less than budget if anything is happens to be under budget. The girl told my husband that if we wanted to see the invoices, we needed to talk to the CEO.
I suggested that maybe they just consider this stuff part of the mark-up that they use to calculate the cost of the house, but mark-up and overhead is a seperate line item on our list of budgeted items. If they want the extra money, they should just increase the mark-up and stop screwing us.
Do we have any rights to the receipts/invoices? We have a contract with the builder, but I suspect that it doesn't include a "right to audit" section or anything like that.
My husband and I are building a house with a very reputable company. They have been responsive and the house is going very well so far. We have 2 loans for the house and the first has been exhausted. So, to avoid starting the second loan, we've asked the builder to bill us directly for the remaining work. The bank lender has not asked for receipts/invoices in the past from the builder, all they do is verify that the work has been completed.
My husband met with the girl that requests the funds from the banks today. When he asked her about obtaining the receipts from the subcontractors when she requests funds from us she got a little nervous. Upon a quick examination while she was out of the rooom, he noticed that (for example) our gargage door was budgeted $750, but was only billed for $745. The builder requested the full $750 from the bank. The discrepancy itself is what makes us nervous. We do have some things that we know are over budget that we are going to pay for out of pocket (like countertops), but it could be that the things that are under would've covered the total overage. It's like they take whatever was budgeted or the overage, but never anything less than budget if anything is happens to be under budget. The girl told my husband that if we wanted to see the invoices, we needed to talk to the CEO.
I suggested that maybe they just consider this stuff part of the mark-up that they use to calculate the cost of the house, but mark-up and overhead is a seperate line item on our list of budgeted items. If they want the extra money, they should just increase the mark-up and stop screwing us.
Do we have any rights to the receipts/invoices? We have a contract with the builder, but I suspect that it doesn't include a "right to audit" section or anything like that.