Contractor wants a change order AFTER installing a cabinet she confirmed twice. Am I wrong for refusing?
TL;DR: Contractor’s signed drawings showed a double oven cabinet. We’re doing a microwave over a single wall oven. I questioned it in writing before signing, she confirmed it was correct and a trim kit would cover the gap. Wrong-looking cabinet arrives, my husband flags it BEFORE install, she confirms again “correct cabinet, just needs adjusting.” Her crew builds and installs it. NOW she wants a change order for “extensive modification and custom millwork” and has paused our flooring. I think she messed up somewhere upstream and now wants to charge me for her mistake.
timeline:
• April: Signed with a design-build contractor for a kitchen remodel. She presented the cabinet brand options, we picked a line from one of her suggested RTA cabinet companies.
• Early July: Signed a change order (\~$13k) that included relocating electrical specifically for the microwave/wall oven configuration. So the microwave-over-single-oven setup was paid for and documented.
• Mid July: She sends cabinet drawings via DocuSign. The oven cabinet is drawn as a DOUBLE oven. I ask her directly, hey, this shows a double oven, we’re doing a microwave above a single wall oven, is this right? Does the trim kit cover the dead space? She replies: yes, correct cabinet, no extra space, trim kit and/or filler covers it. I sign it.
• Also relevant: we picked the microwave at a design showroom with a rep she knows, her assistant reviewed the model before we purchased, and she personally looked at the unit the day it arrived. We bought the trim kit she named as the solution.
• Mid August: Cabinet gets built on site. It has ONE oven opening. My husband messages the group thread before install: “Looks like the oven cabinet is the wrong one. Where is the space for the microwave?” Her reply: yes this is correct, there’s actually only one size for the wall oven cabinet from this company, and “it is adjusted accordingly.” No mention of cost and it reads like it’s handled to me.
• Her crew installs it anyway.
• today: She sends a long message saying that during installation they “discovered” the cabinet “requires significantly more field modification than anticipated,” that the cabinet company “provided us with incorrect information,” that she’s never installed this cabinet line before, and this will be a change order.
• Also now: flooring is paused because supposedly the whole cabinet has to come out.
I don’t think I should pay a change order…
Nothing changed. The design is identical to what was signed and paid for. A change order is for changed scope. This is the same scope she quoted.
She confirmed the cabinet was correct TWICE in writing, in response to direct questions, before installation.
I checked the cabinet line’s catalog. There is no double oven cabinet in the entire collection. The SKU on our drawing is a single oven cabinet. So the drawing depicted a configuration that literally doesn’t exist for this brand. She specced it, she drew it and when we questioned it she confirmed it.
she said she “Never worked with this line before”, she’s the one who presented this company as an option. We pay her a 20% management fee so she can verify all the construction and design (Which she also adds to every change order, so she’d be charging a management fee on her own management failure.)
Our contract says change orders must be documented and authorized in writing BEFORE the work they cover. The cabinet was built and installed with zero mention of additional cost or a change order needed. And now it needs to be ripped out and modified on our dime?
If the modification was always going to be needed, the time to price it was before I signed the DocuSign, not after everything was built and installed and I have zero leverage.
For context, the project is already 40%+ over the original quote and we’ve signed and paid every legitimate change order, so I don’t think we’re being difficult clients. We just don’t think we should fund her error.
She’s pausing floor installation which was scheduled to start tomorrow because now that cabinet needs to be removed to be altered. Since this is an RTA cabinet I’m concerned about damage and how the alterations will look. Nothing can compare to the factory look. If she stalls the job what can I do?