I apologize in advance this got really long, but I believe it is a Teaching Experience and worth the trouble reading it…
Funny you should ask…
We lived in Italy in the late 1970’s and we had to negotiate for everything, even to have our trash picked up. Afterwards, the trash collector and I would laugh and joke and share a glass of Ouzo or Grappa. Every trip to the market was an adventure in sharpening our negotiation skills. I have no problem “leaving the table” if the negotiations are not going anywhere. But once the contract is drawn and signed, I respect it as I expect the other party to respect it…
In the mid 1990’s our home was damaged by tornados that tore through our town of San Angelo. Although our roof was damaged, it did not leak. Some of our neighbors had not only the shingles, the felt paper, but also some of the roofing torn off. They were in desperate need of roof repair.
It seemed that roofers from all over the country converge on town. We noticed that a lot of roofs simply had tarps nailed down and the roofers went on to other homes to get more contracts…
We took our time and contacted one of the locally owned roofers and we wrote up a contract that really laid out the law for them… We added an Addendum to the initial contract and they had 90-days to start the job, once the job is started, it must be finished in 5-days. They could not subcontract the work, they must perform the repair with their own employees…
We always include the “Time is of the Essence” Clause in every contract we sign… You see, like I wrote earlier, we lived in Italy and they had a very laid back attitude about deadlines. Ask them when they are coming, it’s “Domani” (tomorrow, maybe…), when they do not show, they might apologize and say, "Dopo domani…) (which loosely translates to sometime after tomorrow, whenever…).
So, in the roofing contract, the Time is of the Essence, gave them 90-days to start and if the job was not started by that date, the contract went Null and Void… If the job was not completed in 5-days, the roofer would be penalized $200 a day.
Well, they did get started within the 90-days, but after the roof was torn off, it became apparent that they were sub-contractors and were not trained roofers. When they laid the felt paper, they started at the top of the roof since it was easier to lower the roll of felt paper than to raise it up a row. The results of that meant that the lower row of felt paper was overlapping the upper layer allowing any water to leak under and not shed off. I made them relay all the felt paper with new paper since they stapled it down so securely that it just tore. I called the roofing company and they said they had no other crew to work the job…
When they started installing the shingles, they had their nail guns wet so high, many of the nails punched straight through the shingles. In this instance, I had the city building inspector come out and perhaps the nail the coffin for this team was when they removed the electric attic fan and they did not mark the spot where the hole was and the inspector stepped onto the felt paper covered hole and fell in… It’s a wonder he did not injure himself, but he immediately condemned the installation and installed a Stop Work Order…
State Farm, my insurance company who was paying for the new roof, immediately contacted the roofing company to let them know that any subsequent water damage to the home would be their responsibility and that they had better get a real roofing team out there to fix the roof.
Well, they did, they tore everything off again and started anew. But due to the way the Paper Work for the Stop Work was issued, the roof installation had to be re-inspected to pass…
Seventeen (17) days later after the initial start of the job, the roof passed. We sent the Roofing company the $5,000 minus the $200 times 12-day delay or just $2,600 as specified in the contract…
They were not happy and they tried to sue us in small claims court. We then counter sued them for an additional $1,000 for using sub-contractors in violation to the contract.
Well, they lost, and the judge who also had issues with his roofer, not only threw their case out, he awarded us and additionally $500 for the sub-contractor use…
Well, that was quite a detour from your original question…
Actually, the reference was a joke about Costco, I am pretty sure the refund is only offered on items that Costco actually carries, not their specialty programs…
We bought our Honda directly from the dealer and I wrote about this previously over a year ago. The meat of the deal occurs at the end of the posting. But I would recommend you read it. Nothing like learning about something you never knew you could do…
No matter what is in a contract, all you have to do is cross it out and both parties initial it and that clause is out… If the contract does not have something in it that you want, you simply add an Addendum Sheet and both parties sign it…
You don’t think that the initial roofing contract had any of those conditions in it? No, all the conditions were added with an Addendum Sheet. And I hope you do not feel sorry for that roofing company, at any time they could have said “no,” we do not agree to your conditions, then if they had second thoughts later on, all they had to do was delay the work and the contract would have gone null and void at 90-days…
But No, they were greedy and so greedy that they hired untrained people to put a new roof on our home… And even after I called them with the problems, they left them there…
I will finish with this, I honestly cannot say how I would feel about a rebate that magically came about suddenly… At the 30-day mark I probably would not have much to say.
But I have read that some buyers were given a “wink and nod” to come back in a week or so and they could get a better deal… And a few who had signed the contract prior to the rebate but picked up the car after the rebate and did not receive the rebate… So, I guess it all depends…
But in any case, no contract is written in stone, if you feel or think that a rebate might be just around the corner, then have the Rebate Addendum Clause added to the contract. The dealer has the right to agree or not, but if they agree, you might collect a tidy little prize…