Is a builder’s quote legally binding?

No, and they commit you to different things. A quote, sometimes called a quotation or a fixed estimate, is a firm offer to do defined work for a stated price. An estimate is your best guess at what the work will cost. Citizens Advice puts it to homeowners in those terms: a quote is a fixed price, and an estimate is a rough guess that may end up higher.

The heading on the document matters less than what it says. A document headed ‘estimate’ that sets out a full scope, a single total and a start date reads like a quote, and a customer will treat it as one. If a figure is only a guide, say so on the face of it, say what could move it, and give a range or the method you will use to work out the final price.

NoteA day rate is neither. If you price by the day, estimate the number of days and say what happens if the job runs over.

When the customer accepts it. Your quote is the offer, and their acceptance turns it into a contract on the terms the quote sets out. Acceptance does not need a signature. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 applies to a contract whether it is written, oral or implied from the parties’ conduct, or a mix of the three (section 1(2)).

• In writing. A signed copy, an email saying yes, or an online acceptance. The best evidence, because it shows which version of the quote was accepted and when.
• Orally. A yes on the phone or on the doorstep is still acceptance. Proving what was agreed is the problem, so confirm it by email the same day.
• By conduct. Letting you start, clearing the room, paying the deposit. The Supreme Court said in RTS Flexible Systems v Molkerei Alois Müller [2010] UKSC 14 that whether there is a contract depends on what was communicated by words or conduct, judged objectively, and not on what either side privately intended.

A quote you have sent is an offer. Once the customer accepts it, in any of those ways, you are bound to do the work in it for the price in it.

If the customer replies ‘yes, but include the skip and the decorating’, they have not accepted your quote; they have asked for something different, so price the change and confirm it in writing before you start.

Commercial work follows the same rules. Section 107 of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996, which confined the Construction Act to contracts in writing, was repealed for contracts made on or after 1 October 2011 in England and Wales and 1 November 2011 in Scotland, so a subcontract agreed on the phone carries the Act’s payment and adjudication rights.

A homeowner having work done on their own house is a consumer: an individual acting for purposes wholly or mainly outside their trade, business, craft or profession (section 2(3)). Chapter 4 of Part 1 of the Act then writes terms into every contract you make with them to supply a service, whatever your quote says. The Act applies across the UK.

Section 50 is the one that catches builders out. What you tell a homeowner about the job, on the survey visit, by text or in the quote, becomes part of the contract if they took it into account when deciding to go ahead or making a later decision about the work. It is subject to anything that qualified it on the same occasion and to any change both of you expressly agreed (section 50(2)). The information the 2013 Consumer Contracts Regulations require you to give is treated as part of the contract in the same way (section 50(3)).

If you tell a homeowner something about the job and they rely on it, it is a term of the contract, written down or not.

Sections 54 to 56 set the remedies when the service does not conform to the contract.

1. 01Repeat performance. The customer can require you to do the work again, to the extent needed to put it right. You must do it within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience to them, and you bear the cost, including labour and materials (section 55).
2. 02Price reduction. Where putting it right is impossible, or you do not do it within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience, the customer can require the price to be reduced by an appropriate amount, which can be the full price (section 56). A refund is due within 14 days of you agreeing they are entitled to it.
3. 03Late work. Breach of the reasonable-time term in section 52 gives a right to a price reduction (section 54(5)).
4. 04Everything else. The customer can still claim damages or, in a serious case, treat the contract as at an end, though not recover twice for the same loss (section 54(6) and (7)).

Repeat performance is the cheap remedy for you too: a builder who returns promptly to fix a defect keeps control of what the fix costs.

Yes. A company, a main contractor or a landlord acting for a letting business is not a consumer, so the Consumer Rights Act does not apply. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, Part II of the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 implies similar terms instead:

• Reasonable care and skill, where you act in the course of a business (section 13).
• A reasonable time, where the contract does not fix the time (section 14).
• A reasonable charge, where the contract does not fix the price (section 15).

Between businesses, these terms can be negatived or varied by express agreement, subject to the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 (section 16). Part II does not extend to Scotland.

Business work also brings in the Construction Act. A construction contract with anyone other than a residential occupier carries a right to stage payments unless the work is specified, or agreed to be estimated, to last less than 45 days (section 109), the payment notice and pay less notice regime, and a right to adjudicate at any time. The residential occupier exclusion in section 106 covers only a contract with somebody who lives, or intends to live, in the dwelling, so work for a landlord on a rented house is inside the Act.

NoteA landlord doing up a flat to let may be acting for business purposes and so not be a consumer, but under section 2(4) of the 2015 Act it is for you to prove that. Treat the job as consumer work unless you are sure.

Everything you would want in front of a judge if the job went wrong, in words the customer understands on one reading. Building up the figure itself is covered in how to price a job properly.

• Scope and specification. What you will do, to what standard, with which materials, and who supplies what.
• Exclusions. What is not included: making good, decoration, skip and scaffold licences, asbestos, drainage beyond a stated point, anything behind walls you have not opened.
• Provisional sums. Labelled allowances for work not yet defined, and how they will be adjusted. See provisional sums and PC sums.
• Price and VAT. For a consumer, the 2013 Regulations require the total price inclusive of taxes, or how it will be calculated where it cannot be fixed in advance. Show net, VAT and total.
• Validity. The date the price holds until. A dated validity period gives you a clean point to re-price.
• Payment stages. Any deposit, stage payments tied to events either side can check, and the days to pay. See getting paid faster.
• How variations are priced. At the quote’s rates where they apply, otherwise at agreed rates or daywork, confirmed in writing first. See variations in construction.
• Start and duration. A start window and an expected duration, with what can move them. A date you mentioned in passing can otherwise bind you under section 50.
• Approvals. Who applies for planning permission or building control approval and pays the fees, and who deals with party wall notices.
• Your terms. Including, for work agreed in the customer’s home, the cancellation information and form the law requires. See can a customer cancel building work?

Not because the job turned out harder than you priced it. Citizens Advice tells homeowners a trader cannot charge more than the quote unless the customer asks for extra work, agrees to pay for extra work the trader says is needed, or the price contained an obvious mistake. A rise in your own costs is not on that list.

The customer asks for more

That is a variation. Price it, get it agreed in writing before you do it, and number it so it reaches the final account.

You find something nobody could see

Rotten joists under a floor, a drain where the drawings show none. If the quote excludes it or carries a provisional sum for it, you have a route to payment. If not, a fixed quote leaves the risk with you: explain what you found, price the extra and get agreement before carrying on. How to price a house extension lists the unknowns to exclude or allow for.

Your costs go up

Before acceptance, re-issue the quote with a new date. After acceptance, a fixed price is fixed unless the contract says otherwise. In a consumer contract, a term letting you set the price after the customer is bound, or raise it without giving them a right to cancel if it ends up too high, is on the list of terms that may be unfair (Schedule 2, paragraphs 14 and 15). An indexation clause that explicitly describes how the price moves falls outside those paragraphs (paragraph 25), but must still pass the fairness test in section 62.

The quote has expired

A customer who says yes after the validity date is asking you to hold a price you no longer offered. Hold it or send a revised quote, and put the answer in writing either way.

Sometimes. If the customer is a consumer and the contract was agreed in their home or elsewhere away from your premises, or entirely by phone, email or online, the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 give them 14 days to cancel without a reason, extended by up to 12 months if you leave out the cancellation information. A contract agreed at your own premises carries no statutory right to cancel. See can a customer cancel building work?

An Estimark quote goes out on your letterhead with your terms, the line items you choose to show, and net, VAT and total set out separately. The customer opens it from a link on their phone and can accept and sign it there without creating an account, and the signature is stored against the quote with the date it was given.

Each quote carries a valid-until date and a status: draft, sent, accepted, declined, expired or converted. A quote nobody accepts by its valid-until date expires, and an expired quote can no longer be signed. An accepted quote converts to a job carrying the accepted total as its budget, and later changes are raised on the job as numbered variations, priced and approved. Customers cannot pay a deposit by card through Estimark. See quotes and online acceptance in Estimark.

• Consumer Rights Act 2015, Part 1 Chapter 4: services (legislation.gov.uk)
• Consumer Rights Act 2015, sections 1 and 2 (legislation.gov.uk)
• Consumer Rights Act 2015, Schedule 2: terms that may be unfair (legislation.gov.uk)
• Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982, Part II (legislation.gov.uk)
• Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 (legislation.gov.uk)
• Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996, Part II (legislation.gov.uk)
• RTS Flexible Systems v Molkerei Alois Müller, UKSC 2010/14 (The National Archives)
• Before you get work done on your home (Citizens Advice)
• Problem with building work, decorating or home improvements (Citizens Advice)