The cleanout invoice says 11 tons. The arithmetic won't land.

My aunt's estate has a house going to sale and I'm the one handling the paperwork, so the cleanout invoice landed on me. It's $7,900 for a 1,600 square foot ranch with a basement.

The line items: four 20 yard pulls at $625, 11.4 tons disposal at $82, crew labor 38 hours at $65, a $175 mattress fee, $240 for two appliances.

So hauling is $2,500, disposal is $935, labor is $2,470, extras are $415. That's $6,320, and the invoice says $7,900. There's a line called "job management, 25%" that I think accounts for the gap.

Two things bother me. First, 11.4 tons out of four 20 yard boxes is 2.85 tons a box, which seems light to me for a house with a full basement, and I'd expected the containers to come back heavier. Second, the $625 pulls were described to me on the phone as including three tons each, and if that's true then twelve of the 11.4 tons were already paid for in the pull price and I'm being billed twice.

I've asked for the scale tickets. Nobody has sent them. Am I misreading how these get billed, or is this double billing?

3 replies

1dpatel_reCS4A

Don't let the tonnage question distract you from the labor line. 38 hours at $65 is $2,470 and that rate implies a supervised crew with a truck, which is fine, but then the 25 percent job management charge is billing you for supervision twice. Pick one.

On your instinct that the boxes came back light: 2.85 tons of household goods in a 20 yard box is about right, actually. Furniture and boxed contents are bulky and low density. If you'd been throwing out plaster or roofing you'd have hit 6 tons and the box would have been half empty. Light boxes are what a contents cleanout looks like.

So the number I'd contest is $935 plus the management percentage, roughly $2,000 of a $7,900 bill. Ask for the tickets in writing, one email, and say the payment goes out when they arrive. Estates get slow-walked because everyone assumes the person handling them won't fight.

2jordan_ellis2ActivePRO6

Also worth knowing who authorized the scope. If the estate hasn't got someone formally appointed to act yet, and you're paying vendor invoices, that can get awkward later when the accounting gets reviewed. Different in every state and I'm not the person to tell you how yours works, but I'd ask the estate attorney before wiring $7,900.

The cleanout invoice says 11 tons. The arithmetic won't land.

3 replies