Can a builder charge more than the quoted price?
Most price rises on a building job are found work, not sharp practice. What decides it is whether you were told before the work was done or after.
Usually not, if what you hold is a quote. A quote is an offer of a fixed price, and once you accept it that figure is the contract. A builder can charge above it where you agreed a change, or where something genuinely unforeseen was found and put to you before the extra work was done.
The short version
- A quote fixes a price. An estimate is a considered guess and does not bind the same way. What the document is headed matters far less than what it says.
- Most increases on a roof are found work, not sharp practice. The test is whether you were told before the work was done or after it.
- A builder cannot charge more on a quote because their own costs went up since they priced it.
- A verbal agreement is a contract. The problem is never that it does not count, it is proving its terms.
- If an invoice arrives higher than agreed, pay the part you accept and dispute the rest in writing at the time, not afterwards.
Start here
Quote or estimate, and how to tell which you have
The whole answer turns on which of the two you accepted, and the word at the top of the page does not decide it. A quote is an offer to do defined work for a stated price: accept it and you have a contract at that figure.
An estimate is the trader's considered guess at what the work will come to, and it does not bind them to the number in the same way. Citizens Advice puts it plainly: a quote is a promise to do work at an agreed price, an estimate is a best guess.
What counts is substance. A document headed "estimate" that lists the work item by item, gives one total and says nothing about the figure moving is behaving like a quote. One headed "quote" whose final amount depends on what is found has not fixed much. Read yours for three things: whether the work is described well enough to be measured, whether there is one total or a range, and whether any wording lets the figure change.
On an estimate you owe a reasonable amount and no more, covered below. If you are still comparing, the line items a quote ought to carry and why two quotes for one roof land so far apart come first.
| What you have | What it fixes | What can be charged above it |
|---|---|---|
| An accepted quote | The price, for the work described in it. | Changes you expressly agreed, or an error so obvious anyone would have spotted it. |
| An estimate | Nothing, as a number. It still describes the scope. | The bill has to be reasonable, judged against the estimate. |
| A day rate | The rate, not the total. | Time genuinely worked. Agree a review point at which you can stop. |
| Nothing said about price | Nothing. | A reasonable price for the service, and no more. |
Being fair about it
When the price moves for a real reason
Most price increases on a roof are found work and not sharp practice. Nobody can see under a covering that has not been off in forty years.
What turns up once it is stripped is a rotten rafter foot, a soft wall plate, a dropped purlin, spongy decking under a flat roof, or a chimney nobody could reach until the scaffold got there. Asbestos cement in a garage roof or an old soffit is another, and that is a separate waste stream rather than an excuse. None was visible at survey and none can be left once exposed. The other honest reason is that you changed your mind: a different tile, a rooflight, gutters brought into the job while the scaffold is up.
What separates a decent contractor is the handling, not whether anything was found. They stop, they tell you, they price the extra as its own item and they wait for your answer before doing it, and you get a revised total in writing. The provisional sums written into the original quote exist for this, and a good one names the item, the assumed quantity and the rate the extra is priced at. Timing matters more once scaffold is up, because hire runs on the calendar whether anyone is on it or not, which is why how many weeks were allowed for is worth knowing early.
The test is not the size of the extra but whether it was raised before the work was done or after. A line added to the final invoice fails that test however genuine the rot was.
The other side
When the extra does not stand up
An extra is not legitimate where the thing it covers could have been seen and counted at quote stage. The area, the pitch, the valleys, hips and abutments, whether there is a chimney, whether there is side access, how far the scaffold has to reach. All of it is countable from the ground with a tape and half an hour, and a contractor who priced without counting took a commercial risk that is theirs.
Rising costs are the second, and they catch people out because the argument sounds reasonable. On a quote with no variation wording in it, a builder cannot charge you more because their own costs have gone up since they quoted. Materials moving between quote and start date is the risk they took on when they fixed the price.
The third is work you never agreed to. A builder cannot decide something would be a good idea, do it, and invoice you. Under section 50 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, what was said or written to you becomes a term of the contract where you took it into account, and it changes only by something "expressly agreed" between you. An invoice is not agreement, and neither is a text sent the evening after the work is finished. VAT on a final bill the quote never mentioned is a separate argument, and a job agreed at your door may carry a right to cancel for fourteen days.
Handshakes
A verbal agreement counts, and that surprises people both ways
A verbal contract for building work is legally binding. It does not need signing to exist, which catches out the homeowner who assumes a price agreed on the drive is worth nothing and the builder who assumes the same in reverse. Section 50 covers anything "said or written" to you about the service, so a spoken price you relied on is a term of the contract in the same way a printed one is.
The difficulty is evidential, not legal. In a dispute one person says the price included the flashings, the other says it did not, and there is nothing to look at. That is more useful than "always get it in writing", because it tells you what you are short of. You are short of proof, and proof can be created after the conversation.
There is a trade problem on top of the legal one. A verbal quote cannot carry a specification, and on a roof the specification is the job. "New roof, that price" is enforceable as a figure and useless as a description of the work.
So do both. Get it in writing, and where you already have a verbal price you want to hold somebody to, send it back the same day. An email listing what you understood was agreed, asking them to confirm or correct it, turns an unprovable term into a provable one in ten minutes.
No figure at all
Where a price was never agreed, and where the work is poor
Where no price was fixed and nothing in what was said fixes one either, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 implies a term that you pay a reasonable price for the service, and no more. What is reasonable is a question of fact, which is a lawyer's way of saying it depends on the job. That is where you are when work was agreed in a chat and nobody named a figure.
In practice reasonable tends to mean what that scope would fetch from comparable contractors doing it properly: the days actually worked, the people on site, materials at what a trade account pays rather than a retail shelf, and what that trader charges others for similar work. Not the highest figure you can find, nor the lowest. The evidence that helps is two written prices from other firms for the same scope in the same words.
Whether the work was any good is a separate question, because a fair price for bad work is still bad work. The same Act requires a service to be performed with reasonable care and skill. Where it was not, the first remedy is repeat performance: the trader does it again at their own cost, including in particular the cost of any labour or materials, within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience to you.
A price reduction is the second remedy rather than a free choice between the two. It arrives where doing the work again is impossible, or where you asked for repeat performance and they failed to deliver it in a reasonable time or without significant inconvenience. It is an appropriate amount and can be the whole price. If money has already changed hands, what was reasonable to be asked for up front is worth checking too.
The invoice
When the bill lands higher than the quote
Deal with it in writing on the day it arrives, and do not pay quietly while objecting privately. Paying in full and complaining afterwards makes your position harder, because the obvious question is why you paid if you did not accept it. If you pay to end the matter, say in the same message that you pay under protest and dispute a stated part of it.
Put the dispute in one email. What was agreed and when, with the quote attached. What is now claimed. Which parts you accept and which you do not, and why: either the extra was never put to you before it was done, or it should have been priced at the start. Then say what you are paying and when. Keep every message, and keep the conversation off the phone from that point on.
Before you refuse to pay anything. Withholding the whole sum where part is plainly owed weakens your position rather than strengthening it. The builder can pursue the undisputed part, and a court sees one side that paid what it accepted and one that paid nothing. Hold back only what is genuinely in dispute, and say which is which.
An illustration, with round numbers. The quote said £6,000 and the invoice says £7,500, of which £1,500 is a variation nobody mentioned until it arrived. Paying £6,000 and disputing £1,500 in writing beats paying nothing, and narrows the argument to the one item where these things settle.
And if the extra was raised with you properly and you agreed to it at the time, the honest answer is that you owe it.
Next
What to do next
When a builder bills more than the quote, check whether the document was a quote or an estimate, list the disputed items separately, and send one email setting out what you accept and what you dispute. Work through it in order. Most disputes end at step three.
- Read the original document for substance: quote, or estimate?
- List the disputed items separately from the agreed ones, noting whether each was raised before the work was done.
- Send one email setting out what was agreed, what is claimed, what you accept, what you dispute and why, and ask for a written breakdown of the extra.
- Pay the undisputed part and say that is what you are doing.
- If it stalls, ring the Citizens Advice consumer helpline on 0808 223 1133. Advisers talk you through the law that applies and pass information about complaints on to Trading Standards, which you cannot do yourself.
- For the money itself, the small claims track of the county court is the route, and step three is the paperwork it runs on.
This is a general explainer, not legal advice on your job. If a lot of money is at stake, take advice on your own facts first.
Thomas comes out and prices the job himself, and what he finds goes in writing with the work listed line by line. What we cover is on the roofing page, and you can ask for a free written itemised quote or get in touch. If the roof has years left, he will say so.
Questions
Common questions
Can a builder charge more than the quoted price?
Not on an accepted quote, unless you expressly agreed a change, or the figure contained an error so obvious that anyone would have spotted it. A quote is an offer of a fixed price and accepting it forms a contract at that figure. Extra work found along the way has to be put to you and agreed before it is carried out.
What is the difference between a quote and an estimate?
A quote is a promise to do described work at an agreed price. An estimate is the trader's best guess at what it will come to and does not bind them to the number in the same way. The heading on the document is not decisive: what counts is how well the work is described, whether there is one total, and what was actually agreed.
Is a verbal quote legally binding?
Yes. A verbal agreement for building work is a contract, and anything said to you about the service can be a term of it. The difficulty is proving what was agreed, not whether it counts. Send the trader an email the same day listing what you understood and asking them to confirm, and you have turned an unprovable term into a provable one.
Can a builder increase the price because materials went up?
No, not on a quote that fixed a price and contained no wording allowing the figure to change. A movement in the trader's own costs between quoting and starting is a risk they took when they fixed the price. It is different where you agreed a variation, or where the arrangement was only ever an estimate or a day rate.
What should I do if the final invoice is more than the quote?
Put the dispute in writing straight away, setting out what was agreed, what is now claimed, which parts you accept and why you reject the rest. Pay the undisputed part and say that is what you are doing. Keep every message. If it stalls, the Citizens Advice consumer helpline on 0808 223 1133 can advise and can pass the complaint to Trading Standards.
Read next
Related advice
The guides below pick up where this one leaves off, and the roofing page covers the work itself and the places we cover, if you would rather have the job looked at.
Who wrote this
Thomas Hannen
Thomas owns Bournemouth Roofing & Building and prices every job himself instead of sending somebody else. The company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, number 15471719, registered in England and Wales. If you want to talk something through before you commit to anything, the site visit and the written itemised quote are both free.
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