UKH

Two weeks ago I had an electrician in to do a minor job which I didn't have time to do myself. It was easily DIYable. Before he came I asked if he charge for call outs and he said yes - £30.

He came along and did the work quite quickly and said it was £30 +VAT. I asked how he wanted paying and he said he would prefer cash. I said that I didn't have enough cash on me; could he accept a BACS payment. He seemed happy with that and I gave him my email address so that he could send me his bank details. I followed up with a text message to him confirming my email.

I've still not had anything giving me his bank details. In the circumstances would anyone else bother hastening him again?

Maybe I'm just a bit worried that he might come banging on the door saying that he'd sent me an email(which obviously hasn't arrived) asking where his money is.

Could it be in your spam box?

No, checked that

What would be the problem with a follow-up text message to check that his email hasn't gone astray?

Fair point but how many "follow ups"?

Are you hoping to get away with not paying him, or are you worried about hassling him for the invoice?

Hopefully the latter and I would wait two more weeks and then contact him.

My plumber can take 7-9 weeks to issue invoices. Obviously as I already know this, I don’t chase unless it gets to 12 weeks. Admittedly the difference here is that it’s “snail mail” hard copy invoice. Same for my office cleaner. 

If it were a large amount and I felt uneasy about it burning a hole in my pocket then I might be more inclined to chase. 

No/yes

(I will chase in about two weeks.}

Sounds reasonable. I don’t think you have cause to worry about him “knocking on your door” with menace 😀 But best keep £36 cash handy just in case 😀

In my experience some of the people with the great skills at electrics plumbing etc are not the people with the best skills at organising.  

I wouldn't over think it. 

If you know where he lives and it's not inconvenient shove an envelope with the cash through his door with your address on it.  

If not then a reminder text message is fine.

I can't see any sparky bothering you over a small bill you've agreed to pay.  

Tradesmen are not always the finest when it comes to back office/ paperwork. 
I know tradespeople who simply dont invoice all their customers because they dont have effective systems in place that they follow.

If you want the tax man to get their £6 Vat, I'd suggest bank transfer however. 

Supporting your local tradesman and supporting the tax system are 2 different strands to the discussion. I'd feel a little more uneasy about not paying the tradesman tbh - thats his roof over his head, food on the table etc.

I don't see any mention of anyone trying to avoid VAT in this case. At least not until you brought it up. 

Why don’t you just phone and ask ? 

There is generally only one reason to ask for cash. 

Why the f*ck would any of us give a flying shit about £6 of VAT when this so called govt is dishing out 100s of millions, if not billions, of £s to their cronies?

I know I don't.

There IS that, but the order of the words in the OP is this
"said it was £30 +VAT. I asked how he wanted paying and he said he would prefer cash"

Maybe I leapt to a conclusion. Maybe others leapt to the opposite conclusion. Either way, nobody explicitly mentioned VAT avoidance until Kevster

You are correct, maybe I just see the worse in people buy my feeling it it was probably a labour only job, no parts means zero audit trail so he will probably trouser the extra £6.

I had a bloke do a gas safety check in July on a property I own and he still hasn't billed me. I sent him two messages to tell him I had received no invoice and on both occasions he said he would send one...can't be arsed chasing it up again....i do wonder why he hasn't bothered to bill me though. 

They may have given hundreds of millions to their mates but they also spend billions on things like schools, NHS, parks, roads etc. £844 billion in 2019.

You have me convinced though, I'm going to stop paying my taxes. 

As marsbar and kevester said, good trades people are often really busy. When we finish a day we don't want to spend the evening stuck in the office doing paper work. So invoicing often gets left till we get a quiet day or a time when we can't work, like when the van's in for a service or really bad weather days. I'm sure you'll get one in due course. 

I often don't get round to invoicing small amounts until the end of the month, I wouldn't sweat it.

Jeez you're organised, end of the quarter is good, end of the year maybe a bit slow.

Well, after posting that I've realised I need to invoice for some work done in July so not that organised!

There are a lot of programs out there that will automatically turn your quote in to an invoice when your customer signs off the job on your phone. Might be worth looking at. 

Thanks all. I'll send him another text or phone him in a couple of weeks. I shall then consider the ball well and truly in his court.

Just that I didn't want any misunderstanding because he seemed a decent chap, he was punctual and did the job quickly and with no fuss. In short a chap I would be happy to use again.