Lifetime of a Devis after it has been accepted...

[Catalpa]

So, you (or a client) has signed a devis with no start or completion date. No money has been paid up front. Of course. [:)]

Does anyone know from a legal point of view how long it is necessary to wait before a signed devis is invalid if the artisan or enterprise cannot be persuaded to start the work?

How does one go about cancelling a signed devis if, say, the client has waited 6 months for work to start and still cannot get a start date agreed with the company.

 

[Chezstevens]

6 months is not a long time to wait - artisans are busy in our area so we often wait 18 months for work to start - the best artisans are that busy.  If you have not put a start date, and end date with penalties, in the devis then you are contracted - you could try talking to the artisan who may release you from the contract but make sure his copy is destroyed  We are not interested in 'bodgit and scarper' brits and french vans so are prepared to wait - the price has never increased.

regards

Vern

[Benjamin]

On 2nd of June last year we had a devis for a small amount of work to be done in our kitchen totalling just less than 500€. We signed and took the devis back personally. We asked at this point when the work would be done and we were told by the end of July, before they closed for the main summer holiday.

On 15th of September we visited the company again and asked why the work hadn't been done. The man looked at us as if we were from Mars, ignored our copy of the devis which we tried to give him and then proceeded to find his own copy in his files which he looked at as if he'd never seen it before in his life. He eventually spluttered that the work would be done on 10th of October which he quickly changed to be between the 10th and 15th of October.

On 14th of November I wrote cancelled across our copy, took a photocopy of it and took it round and left it with his secretary. The next day I had a very irate man on the phone asking why we had cancelled his devis. He didn't seem to understand the concept of giving a promise and being expected to keep to it!

I don't know the legality of what we did but surely there must come a time when enough broken promises on the part of the artisan constitutes a default of the contract.

Benjamin

[Nick Trollope]

[quote user="catalpa"]

So, you (or a client) has signed a devis with no start or completion date. No money has been paid up front. Of course. [:)]

Does anyone know from a legal point of view how long it is necessary to wait before a signed devis is invalid if the artisan or enterprise cannot be persuaded to start the work?

How does one go about cancelling a signed devis if, say, the client has waited 6 months for work to start and still cannot get a start date agreed with the company.

 

[/quote]

It all comes down to what is reasonable, I guess. You entered into a contract with reasonable expectations that it will be fulfilled. The Artisan must complete the work within a reasonable period of time (as nothing was stated on the Devis). with the reasonable expectation of getting paid.

Of course, defining reasonable is the difficult part. Today, I doubt if a French Tribunal d'Instance would regard 6 months as unreasonable - it is accepted that all good Artisans are very busy.

Best bet is to negotiate - if one can find another Artisan, there is little chance that the "clock" will not start again, and if you unilaterally cancel the contract (ie. breach it), you may find yourself getting sued.

Lesson (learnt by me the hard way!) - never sign a devis without a start & finish date on it!

Edit - I've just learnt (from a posting on another Forum) that a devis has a life of 2 years. I can't verify this, nor did the poster quote the applicable law.

 

[Coco]

What I find a little misleading with most devis is that the artisan will put a life on the devis at that price, ie, the quoted price will only remain the same if the devis is signed and returned with 3 months, or 6 months.  However, this doesn't mean that even if you return the devis the very next day that the work will be done within that period.  In some instances the artisan himself must lose out, or risk losing out.  After all, our roofer quoted for fitting and supplying 3 velux windows, a set of French doors and two dormer windows in March 2005 and he has just finished the work - I don't know whether the cost of the windows has gone up at all during that time, but he takes the risk that they don't!

He has just quoted for a new roof for friends of ours but has already said that he can't start until at least April next year.  At least they know that before they accept the devis!