What routines does the decoration company have? How to avoid these routines?
Behind the low price is the unauthorized increase in fees.
"Classic Package 6 1600 yuan", "Only 799 yuan per square meter" and "88,000 yuan with package" ... Now many Internet home improvement companies will attract customers with the slogan of "low price and all-inclusive". As everyone knows, behind the seemingly low price, there is likely to be a routine of fare increase.
20 18 10 Ms. Meng, who lives in Beijing, spent120,000 yuan to buy a decoration package of an internet home improvement company. However, during the construction process, the foreman suggested that the wall was too thin and needed to increase the insulation layer, and did not tell how much it cost per square meter, nor did he quote, and asked Ms. Meng to give him several thousand yuan privately without taking the company account.
"The above behavior of the foreman is privately added, which is an unreasonable charge, and consumers can completely refuse to pay." Wang Qinghua, a house inspector, has worked in the construction project management industry for more than 20 years. He said that in the decoration process, all projects must be charged by meters and square meters, and the price should be agreed in advance in the contract to prevent the decoration company from falsely reporting the price.
Signing a contract at a low price and increasing the price halfway are not uncommon and have been exposed by the media many times. For example, Ms. Yu from Shanghai contracted to hand over the store to the decoration company, with an agreed budget of 240,000 yuan. However, in the project, the decoration company increased the price by 654.38 million yuan, including the price difference caused by the change of material brand, the omission of key construction projects in the budget, and the need for additions.
In this regard, Zhou Shibing, a lawyer of Shanghai Blue Army Law Firm, believes that there are variables in the actual construction of home improvement compared with the prior forecast, and it is in line with the law to retreat more and make up less according to the actual construction quantity in the later period.
"However, many decoration companies take advantage of this and lose their business behavior," Zhou Shibing said, deliberately attracting consumers with "low price" and then raising the price to "return blood", thus giving consumers a feeling of being cheated.
The decoration quality is unqualified or does not conform to the agreement.
It is said that a penny is worth a penny, but the problem is that you may not be able to buy satisfactory decoration services at a high price.
For example, some owners reported that they bought a large-sized house, and it was inconvenient to go to the site to supervise the work. They specially found a large decoration company with a good reputation and took out a decoration budget of several million yuan. However, at the time of acceptance, it was found that there were serious quality problems in house decoration. "The wall is cracked, the bathroom is empty, and the floor heating is hot and cold."
A similar experience happened to Ms. Wang in Jinan City, Shandong Province. According to reports, Ms. Wang spent 6.5438+0.06 million yuan to decorate the villa at a high price. When she closed the house, she found a pungent smell in the room, and the formaldehyde exceeded the standard by three times. Among them, the wardrobe door panel in the cloakroom of the villa is density board, and the main board is sawdust board. According to professionals, these two kinds of plates are synthesized with a large number of adhesives, and the formaldehyde content is high.
"Not only wooden furniture, there are many places where decoration companies cut corners and shoddy." Wang Qinghua, a house inspector, said, for example, the price difference of wallpaper adhesives in the market is obvious, and the environmental protection is also different. It is not excluded that some construction workers used 5 yuan money to steal a bottle of 100 yuan of environmental protection glue to make inferior glue.
Wang Qinghua also reminded consumers to pay attention to the acceptance of concealed works, such as whether the curvature of electric conduit, the diameter and wall thickness of water pipe meet the standards.
The compensation standard is not clear when the breach of contract is postponed.
In addition to the quality of decoration, it is also easy to cause disputes in the extension of decoration works and the payment of liquidated damages.
Ms Meng's house was renovated from June 20 18 to June 20 10, and the completion date agreed in the contract was June 20 19. Due to the problems in the cabinet production of the decoration company, it has been delayed until April. However, there are problems in calculating delay compensation.
"After signing the main contract, the decoration company asked to sign a supplementary agreement in a few days. It is mentioned in the main contract that if the construction period is delayed due to the decoration company, it shall pay two thousandths of the total project cost, and in the supplementary agreement, the amount will become 100 yuan for each day of delay. " She said, "Because there were too many supplementary agreements, I didn't notice this one at that time, and the decoration company didn't inform this change."
Which contract shall prevail in this case, and is the behavior of the decoration company legal? Yan Bing, director of Beijing Yuntong Law Firm, said that if there are two mutually exclusive agreements on the same specific matter, the latter agreement shall prevail unless the validity level is specified in the contract. In other words, the supplementary agreement shall prevail.
Yan Bing said that the decoration company's behavior is obviously a breach of contract, but it should not be defined as illegal. The law protects the agreement between the two parties, and generally does not regulate the specific behavior in a contractual relationship. However, according to the contract law, if the actual losses suffered by the parties are obviously higher than the agreed liability for breach of contract, they may also claim that the other party shall be liable for damages.
There is an overlord clause in the contract.
Renovation contract is mostly formulated and provided by decoration companies, among which there are many overlord clauses.
For example, in terms of project completion acceptance, the contract of a decoration company mentioned that "if the project fails to go through the acceptance and settlement procedures, Party A's early use will be regarded as qualified, and the losses caused thereby will be borne by Party A."
What is "using projects in advance"? According to the contract, "early use refers to the situation that Party A takes back the key of the external door, replaces the lock of the external door by itself, arranges furniture to enter the site, rents, transfers, lives, or uses the house in any other way before passing the acceptance." This means that if the owner replaces the external door lock or the furniture delivered to the door during the renovation, it will be regarded as the acceptance of the house.
"The above acceptance related terms are very harsh and unreasonable. If there is a dispute between the two parties during the renovation process, the owner will be in a very passive situation. " Wang Qinghua said that the owner, the decoration company, the third-party supervisor or the foreman and construction personnel of the decoration company should be present at the time of acceptance, and the problems found should be recorded.
In order to avoid responsibility, some decoration companies did not adopt standardized contract templates, or used vague language and unclear agreements in some key terms, and misinterpreted the contract terms during or after construction, resulting in damage to the legitimate rights and interests of owners.
According to the case provided by China Consumers Association, on June 20 1, Mr. Sun from Shenyang, Liaoning signed an all-inclusive renovation contract with a decoration company, but later Mr. Sun found that the areas that should be filled in by the decoration company in the contract, such as house area, number of rooms, specific location and budget, were all blank, and the company failed to provide Mr. Sun with the design scheme and budget quotation according to the agreed time.
The China Consumers Association reminds you to choose a regular home improvement company when decorating. When signing a contract with a home improvement company, the content should be clear, detailed and operable, indicating the brand and model of the materials involved in home improvement. Generally, the words "domestic famous brand" and "international famous brand" should not be used.
In addition, some defects in the renovated house will not appear in a short time. In order to ensure the smooth solution of decoration quality problems in the future, consumers should sign a project warranty agreement with the decoration company to clarify the warranty items, warranty period and other related matters.