Today I got a phone call from the plumber. I said I wasn't happy discussing it on the phone but would prefer it conducted in writing. He said he would hate to lose me as a customer and that's why he was trying to find a compromise over the phone rather than go down the 'legal' route. So we chatted for quite a while about it.

I stood my ground though. He said he'd go and have a think about it and see what he could come up with. At one point he talked about half price for the PCB and a revision on the labour.

To be honest, it looks like I've got the WRONG question here. Of course I will pay these people - the question is will I have to pay more than I believe I should?!

When I was looking at these, I was wondering if I could just have the Moon, Mars could be plumber and 7th ruler for engineer. Second house has to be my money - second would be my advisor during a court case. I'm not sure about taking the dispositor of a house ruler as an alternative significator.

I think I'm just going to stop thinking about it and wait and see what happens.

I was chatting to a couple of friends who reckon I should pay the engineer the agreed price. I said that they might be more inclined to go after me if they had that sum of money and therefore nothing to lose. Whereas if I paid nothing, they would be more likely to revise the bill to get something in.

Maybe I should do another horary on this question - ha ha ha!!

Thanks again for your comments.

HoraryQueen wrote:To be honest, it looks like I've got the WRONG question here. Of course I will pay these people - the question is will I have to pay more than I believe I should?!

Hi

I understood your question 'Will I have to pay these people?!' as containing an unspoken section, revealed by what you wrote explaining the situation. The unspoken section in parentheses --

'Will I have to pay these people (the amounts they're now asking for rather than the amounts we agreed)?'

I never thought for one second that you were asking about not paying anything at all.

It was clear from everything you wrote both up front and afterwards that you fully intended to pay them in line with your first agreements with them, just that you didn't want to and wouldn't pay them the extra amounts they want now.

Regards

H.

A little update. I received a letter in the post when I got in from work yesterday, from the Structural Engineer, enclosing a revised bill for the amount agreed on the phone!

So two communications in one day, one positive and the other a bit 'waffly'. From what I can gather of the plumber conversation, I have stated in writing what I would like and advised that if I don't hear from them in 14 days I will have to take the matter further. They are now trying to resolve this verbally and I think possibly trying to persuade me on the phone that I should pay for some of the extra.

Reading between the lines, that makes me think they are not feeling as strong about their position as I am. If they felt so strongly about it they would write to me stating their position perfectly clearly.

So that is 10 days after the question - I will need to have another look at the chart and see how this figures.

Thanks again folks.