<p>agent fee…I’m liking it :)</p>
<p>I’m still shaking my head at the $25 or $50 for taking down a tree, especially since the extent of damage and thus work is unknown. Now, I know the meaning of “it’s a steal.”</p>
<p>lts, stick to what I said. Markets work most efficiently when the information flow is perfect. You tried to bring two parties together and it didn’t work. If the landlord still wants to work with your landscaper, that’s fine but the landlord needs to negotiate the deal personally, instead of you doing so and being liable for anything beyond what the landscaper first quoted to you, a person who had no authority taking quotes in the first place.</p>
<p>Now you’ve given the landlord some valuable information in negotiating with the landscaper. You have no reason not to share the information you got from the landlord, so that the landscaper can bargain. Then step back and let the market forces work themselves out. The parties can say “no” or reach an agreement among themselves…with both sides having equivalent information going into their negotiation.</p>
<p>Here’s the caveat to you: By sharing the landlord’s price-point information with the landscaper, don’t think you’re giving your landscaper a free handout. Again, you’re simply leveling the playing field in terms of information. But, more importantly, understand that landlords – like all good businessmen – don’t eat their costs, they pass them on. And at the end of your lease, those costs are going to appear in your renewal or the successor tenant’s lease. Or, if the landlord has multiple properties, they’ll be spread out. But this is not about shifting the cost to your landlord as much as it’s about having the tenants at least share the cost of having premises that they can enjoy. If you renew the lease, you may wind up paying for this even if it doesn’t appear as a line item under “Surcharge for not hooking me up with that cheap tree quote you originally lined up.”</p>
<p>The landscaper will go through several chain saw blades/chains ( the cost to sharpen and even replace) just gettin this tree cut up. There is no way he can do it for $25 or 50. If it is oak, there is a market for firewood, but during summer, prices are lower. My guess is that, hours and several saws into it, he will have to quit and tell you it was way over his head and he did what he could for $25/50. We life in Florida and this happened to us when our landscaper was removing trees after the hurricanes. He had no clue.</p>
<p>In Florida, with the legal climate, if this guy has no workman’s comp (I am not sure all landscapers self employed need it) just give the landlord the landscaper’s number and let him handle it directly. The property owners homeowners insurance may cover a good portion of the cost anyway.</p>
<p>Taking $25 for this type of job would be taking advantage of the poor man.</p>
<p>sunnyflorida raises a good point, lts. If you stay involved as the project manager, you might very well be effectively guaranteeing both the price and the work that’s performed. And if your landscaper bails out as sunnyflorida suggests is possible, who will foot the bill for the landscaper and the added expense of a new contractor to finish the job or repair any damage “your” landscaper might have created? The liabilities to you are so murky – and you’ve got a landlord who seems to regard you as something of a guarantor going in – that you need to be expressly clear that you are totally divorcing yourself from the negotiations and selection of a contractor.</p>
<p>You’re certainly right, LTS in post 39 giving an example of dishonest. Your example is clearly dishonest. I can think of examples of honesty, or of dishonesty too. I think the key here is your example would imply “what if I had told him 500, but kept $475.?” It illustrates a good example, but it doesn’t address what really happened. What really happened is that the gardener said he’d do it for $25, you passed that info on, and landlord emailed you his acceptance of that. Offer and acceptance. What the gardeners costs might be, what labors he might do, what others might charge, imo has absolutely no relevance now. Those were factors that should have been taken into consideration before. The landlord has emailed acceptance of the offer you provided him.
Don’t get me wrong, I think $25 is way cheaper than a typical market value. I also feel that you can feel good about yourself when you choose to overpay your gardener. I guess my biggest problem here is that after you help broker a deal for the clean-up, you got additional information about the typical cost, and finding that is much higher, you now want to forget the deal and blame the landlord for wanting to accept the deal you brokered. Do you want to imply the landlord is “stealing from those far less fortunate” by wanting to accept the offer you brokered?
In my opinion what we have here is similar to “buyers remorse”. After the deal is apparently done, one party has second thoughts about the fairness. I agree with the part that you erred when you negotiated on behalf of the gardener. Where we disagree is on the solution. You feel the fair thing to do is to help the gardener by forgetting the deal and claim the landlord is being unfair. You want to look back and say “gee, I realize now thats not a fair deal to the gardener- let’s pretend it didn’t happen”. I think that would be unfair to the landlord. Should he have to pay $500 now for a job he agreed to at $25? I just cannot agree with you, and perhaps some of the other posters that shortchanging the landlord is ok, but paying less to the gardener is not. Shortchanging someone more fortunate is just as bad as shortchanging someone less fortunate. The problem is not that the landlord is cheating someone, but rather that you are now feeling bad about the deal you helped arrange. I’m not a college grad, but in my life, a deal is a deal, and its not any more ok to cheat a prosperous man than a poor man. Integrity and fairness, imo is not based on one’s education or bankbook, nor is it dependent on the situation. I just don’t see looking back on a deal, and feeling it was too one-sided as justification for reniging on the deal.
Here again, I understand you probably feel bad for brokering a deal for $25 when later you found out even $300. might have been a bargain. That feeling speaks well of your compassion for fellow man and those less fortunate. Nevertheless, I don’t feel your compassion and your 20/20 hindsight should overrule the deal you brokered.
And to all, I realize I’m in the minority here with my point of view on this issue. I appreciate a discussion/disagreement with all parties being civil. Thanks to all.</p>
<p>“brokering a deal”</p>
<p>That’d be a tough one to take to court. It would be thrown out immediately.
It’s not that your in a minority pov, your pov has no legal standing. The tenent is in no position to quote prices for an independent contractor as binding. Nothing written, just a verbal opinion of what they’d do it for. It would be different if the landlord and gardner had come to an agreement, yet it also would be hard to enforce.</p>
<p>Actually, the buyer rejected the e-mailed offer. Offer-rejection, not offer-acceptance. He later e-mailed an acceptance…but that was buyer’s remorse, on the landlord’s part.</p>
<p>Plus, lts was not authorized by landlord to solicit quotes. And if it’s the landscaper she was representing then she was authorized to carry on negotiations and squeeze every last penny out of the landlord, right? You can’t have it both ways – with lts representing the landscaper, but being dishonest for trying to get more for the landscaper than what the landscaper indicated he was willing to take for the job.</p>
<p>Fortunately, there was no deal. And lts, is she’s wise, will let the parties work it out (or decline to work it out) directly where she’s not in the ambiguous position of sort of representing the landlord to a point and sort of representing the landscaper to a point and not getting any added value in return for her trouble.</p>
<p>There’s a couple of things at play, here. First, LTS should not get in the middle of the transaction, as several posters have pointed out, for several very good reasons. Second, the landscaper only offered to cut off the portion of the tree which extended outside the boundaries of the lot. I doubt if that is a complete solution to the problem, and the landscaper’s offer might have been based on immediate factors that no longer apply in any case. Probably the entire tree needs to be removed, including the part near the base which is still within the property boundaries.</p>
<p>As to the $25 - $50 fiasco, I have seen lots of small business people, particularly landlords (a common type of small business) who would jump on the $25 bid based on rigorous capitalistic logic. As a lawyer, we have a term for such people: “clients”. That approach will ensure lots of opportunities to get to know your attorney on a very personal, and expensive, level.</p>
<p>The truly successful business owners I’ve encountered would all pay the $50 - or even $100 - in this situation. Being fair to those you do business with - being more than fair - seems to lead to long-term success. And a lack of opportunities to spend “quality time” with lawyers.</p>
<p><a href=“I%20shouldn’t%20be%20giving%20away%20the%20profession’s%20secrets,%20but%20I’m%20feeling%20rebellious%20today.”>I</a>*</p>
<p>
And even better said by kluge, above, our in-house legal advisor ;). Do we have him on retainer? 
:D</p>
<p>Email is such a wonderful medium. In two sentences, you can bow out totally.</p>
<p>“Dear LL: I am not certain whether my landscaper is still available for the job. Also, I have been advised that I should not be involved in contracting for this work, as I am not the property owner and there are local ordinances involved. My landscaper’s name is <strong><em>, and his phone # is _</em></strong>. Thanks for your prompt attention to this matter.”</p>
<p>Okay, 4 sentences.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>LOL. That reminds me of the line of Steve Martin’s character, “Vinnie” Antonelli, in My Blue Heaven, an ex-mobster turned informant who sums up his Dale Carnegie philosophy in these immortal words: “It’s not tipping I believe in. It’s overtipping.”</p>
<p>
I agree totally.</p>
<p>Opie, got to disagree. I think there is legal standing. All parties agree gardener offered to do project for $25., all parties agree landlord accepted that. The tenant acted as agent for the gardener by showing the potential work to the gardener, getting his quote, passing it on to the landlord. Tenant even took it upon himself/herself to modify the gardeners bid. Landlord then emailed his acceptance of the quote. Tenant did much more than just giving gardeners phone # to landlord. Should she have gotten involved? Probably not, but she volunteered to serve as go-between, and obviously both gardener and landlord had no objection. Even if tenant isn’t called an agent, all parties agree on the offer and the acceptance.
Whether tenant chose the best course of action in this matter is opinion, and how they choose to handle it now is a tough one, too. One might argue it wasn’t tenants place to pass on, and to modify gardeners bid, but thats a moot point because the fact remains the tenant did take such actions, both gardener and landlord accepted that role. Should gardener have bid higher? Maybe. Should landlord be willing to pay more? Maybe. Unfortunately not relevant now that landlord has accepted gardeners offer.
I also must disagree about the court, too. If we assume the gardener, the tenant, and the landlord are honest individuals, then the tenant would tell the judge- I showed the gardener the project, he said he’d do it for $25(not in dispute). Gardener was under no pressure from landlord when he arrived at that figure. Tenant passed $50 bid on to the landlord, explaining that tenant has added $25 to gardeners bid basically because she felt the bid was too low. The landlord would say he accepted the gardeners’ offer($25.), and would have an email to prove it. Unless the gardener or tenant were willing to lie under oath, we have an offer and an acceptance. Further, if the court agrees it was a contract, and the gardener fails to perform, the landlord could hire another workman and legally bill the gardener for the difference in cost. I’m not an attorney, but I have been to court in contract disputes as a landlord. NEVERTHELESS, All that, I believe is far from the OP’s point.<br>
Ask you also to remember what I believe is the bigger question from the OP. Imo it’s not really “what is provable in court?” that she’s asking, but rather- what is the right thing to do, now that I have additional info? My (minority) opinion is that the right thing to do is to honor the deal that has been brokered even if it appears one sided. Why? Because thats what both parties agreed to. Next time tenant may choose to get all info first, or simply pass on contact info, or stay out completely. Tenant might choose to hire gardener for more work and overpay him, might choose to refer him to other jobs to help him make additional money. Imo tenant has many options how to handle a similar situation in the future, but only 1 honorable way to handle this one. Bite the bullet, do whatever work was agreed upon for the $25. and proceed with the current deal.</p>
<p>There is no contract here - just ignore that stuff. </p>
<p>Tell the landlord that you talked to a lawyer because you were worried about liability. You were advised that, because of the inherent danger in cutting down a tree near houses and people, that only a bonded and insured landscaper or arborist should do it. Tell him you cannot risk the potential liability and he should not either. Therefore, he should contact a properly insured contractor to take care of the tree.</p>
<p>cutting down/removing a whole tree? Was that what the gardener bid on? I thought the op said the gardener only bid on removing a small portion of it- the part blocking sidewalk or driveway, or something like that. Something about the portion of the tree beyond tenants airspace. Guess I’ll have to go back to op’s description of the work bid on.</p>
<p>I took a look back, and yes; the tenant had the gardener bid on only the portion beyond the airspace of the property. The tenant felt $25 was too low so she added $25 to the bid to total $50. That was the total figure the tenant thought fair for the job the gardener was going to do. It sounds like the gardener only bid on a minimal portion- just enough to keep the landlord in compliance with local laws. The landlord agreed to the gardeners bid of $25. I still say tenant should facilitate that deal, as she started to do, and then if she feels bad for the gardener, either pay him the difference, or continue to overpay him for work he does for her.
Let’s all keep in mind, if the landlord wishes for his property to look nice, he still will have a lot of tree to cut up and remove after the gardener finishes his portion.</p>
<p>
Huh?..</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Sounds to me like the landlords expectations were not a trim of what is overhanging the sidewalk/space but of getting most of this tree remove for a paltry $25.</p>
<p>Younghoss, if I knew where you lived I’d be on the phone working out a referral fee for the lawyer(s) you’re absolutely going to need to hire in the not-too-distant future. Your legal analysis is a good example of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing. You (a) are wrong as a matter of law; (b) know enough pieces of what the law does provide to work yourself into an expensive corner, and (c) don’t seem to recognize the danger of pushing a perceived advantage beyond the breaking point.</p>
<p>*Cha-ching! *</p>
<p>ROTFL!!! Sorry younghoss.</p>
<p>Thanks Kluge,</p>
<p>I didn’t think there was any true offer and acceptance taking place as the gardner and LL never actually discussed anything. The landlord was operating on second hand information. It would be like you performing your services for me at a discounted rate and then I tell somebody and they say, yea I’ll do that to without ever talking to you. It just doesn’t fly as legally binding. </p>
<p>I think? </p>
<p>The other aspect of the whole thing is there is no plan of action. Sure I can take the tree down for $25, that’s just one pass with a chainsaw. :)</p>
<p>The other $800 will be for the removal. :)</p>