Hi there. It sounds like you are in a difficult position. Your legal rights in this situation will depend on whether a contract existed between you and the installer. A contract is a legally binding agreement between two or more people. Contracts can be oral or written. For a contract to exist, there must be three things:

(a) an offer to do something (e.g. sell a product or provide a service);

(b) acceptance of the offer (e.g. when a tradesperson agrees to provide a service for a particular price); and

(c) ‘consideration’, which is something of value (usually money) that is given in return for the goods or services.

You said you received a quote for installation of a power pole. Quotes are usually not legally binding contracts because they are just ‘offers’ and have not been accepted. However, just because parties call something a ‘quote’, does not prevent it from actually being recognised as a legal contract. If the quote was in writing, you should look at the terms and conditions of the quote to see if it claims to create a legal contract between you and the installer.

Whether a legal contract existed in your situation also depends on what was communicated (orally or in writing) between you and the installer. If the installer made an offer to install the power pole and you said or did something that suggested you accepted their offer, then a contract may have formed. If you did not accept the offer and actually rejected it, then you are not likely to have formed a contract with the installer. If no contract existed, then you are not legally required to pay for the services provided by the installer.

Even though a contract may not have existed, where a party who has done work or spent time and money doing something, and another person benefits from their labour, the law may be used to force the benefiting party to pay for that labour. This would be a difficult claim for the installer to make against you, especially if no contract existed, but it is a possibility.