Holy crap!

Tell him to switch back to the old vendor or have the new vendor do the job for $9,604.00. You're not telling him which vendor to use, you're telling him that unless a price escalation clause was in the contract, a deal is a deal.

Container price to import from China have gone from 2K to 18K. Find a different brand.

I agree with Joseph Corlett, once you sign a contract price are not supposed to change. There was indeed a price increase not sure about 2k to 18k but I have seen 15%-20% increase since start of year. We signed for Hanstone Montauk a month ago, we had to give an account but were not impacted by the increase.

the median cost of shipping a standard rectangular metal container from China to the West Coast hit $20,586, nearly double what it cost in July, which was twice what it cost in January. reported by Fox Business, 2 Oct. 2021. (Since then, dropped to $11K-1$4K.)

And, of course, shipping it to your supplier's location and then to you...

It depends completely on what is in your contract

Does the new quote represent current pricing for quartz? I ask because switching vendors is irrelevant unless the old vendor will still supply at a lower price. I would first determine whether the "new" higher pricing reflects what current pricing is because it is always better to have all the objective information when dealing with contractual issues.

What matters is the contract and whether the price was locked in. As others have stated the price could certainly have risen by this amount since June 2021 but perhaps not as much as is stated if you got from a different vendor.

Also you stated that you have an "allowance". When I remodeled there were certain items that were firm and there were certain items that were an allowance and certain items that were firm budgetary line items. And there were certain items that I supplied for installation like the actual counter material which was then fabricated by GC's fabricator and installers.

For allowance items I was charged the amount the third party vendor charged at the time when they did the work.

Our fantasy brown stone for our outdoor kitchen went from a level 1 to a 2. We didnt have an escalation clause in our contract and the builder really ate it. For the stone tho, we had to pay extra because now its a 2. It was a late install because of delays with the pool.

Velvet ninja- verbo is correct and containers can run well above the 18k referenced. Container prices have not gone up 15-20% like you state, but much, much more. In October my company paid 44k for a 20ft container from China to port of Newark. We had to eat the additional cost due to how the customer contract was sold, so I remember that one clearly. :)

Quartz is a poor material for kitchen counters anyway so go get some granite instead . I do not know thw size or style of your kitchen so cant guess the price but I can sure tell you it would be abetter choice for counters . BTW your builder decided to switch suppliers IMO then he eats the increase .

"allowances" = you pay the difference between cost vs allowance amount.

Supply chain issues are still escalating despite high level announcements of "we'll fix it"

Thank you all for your comments, much appreciated. In the contract, the only discussion of price increases are:

“The Buyer agrees that should the materials described below increase in cost, the Buyer will pay the cost of the increase to the Contractor… The specified building materials, for purposes of this agreement are: lumber, concrete, and trim material.”

Also, the June 2021 pricing of $9,604, was entered into and “Locked” in CoConstruct (construction management software) on July 6. Last week they “Unlocked” that price and are presenting the new price, from their replacement vendor.

Just off the top of my head - pros let me know if I’m wrong…
Is it possible to delete the countertops off the contract and do them yourself? Could you hire a fabricator and select slabs locally yourself? I don’t know how this is coordinated in a new build compared to remodeling. My only experience with modifying our build was sourcing our own lights. Anyway, it occurred to me you might have better luck keeping the price down if you hired them yourself.

@Therese N Thanks for your comment. The quartz is just part of the increase associated with switching to the new vendor. Hardwood and all the tilework also went up by 9% and 20% respectively, but not close to the 57% increase in the quartz. The contractor and his vendor do really good work, I'd just like them both to honor what we had already locked in with their previous vendor.

The contractual issue is whether the counter material is "trim" pursuant to customary and standard usage in the construction industry.

In my limited knowledge of construction the counters and other equivalent stuff was referred to as finishes but I am a lay person and am basing it on how counters are referred to - e.g. a place has expensive finishes versus builder grade finishes which covers stuff like tile and counters and other visual elements that are discretionary rather than structural.

Perhaps some of the builders can offer input as to what "trim" generally means.

Being "locked" into the software probably has no legal significance unless there is something more than it being "saved" but provides some evidence of when the parties were informed of a specific price - however it doesn't mean that price was firm if counters are "trim".

Your contract isn't particularly well drafted unfortunately so it is a gray area. Find out what the current market price for the quartz is from a third party vendor. Find out what "trim" generally means in the construction/remodeling/home building industry and then attempt to negotiate with your builder. There is a $6000 differential and maybe you can come to terms especially if there are markups charged by the GC in that amount. On some level you can stick it to your GC and win the battle but not the war because they might find ways to make up lost profit in the long run.

This isn't legal advice - adding that disclaimer.

Thank you @Helen. Yep, gotta be careful of the battle/war thing!!