Misfortune with Solidwood Flooring in Somerset West

I contacted Charl du Plessis of Solidwood Flooring in Somerset West about installing a parquet floor for us at our house in Pringle Bay. He gave us a quote on 27 July 2023. After evaluating his quote against others we'd received, we decided to use another installer. Unfortunately, our preferred installer pulled out at the last minute, and we contacted Charl again and asked him for a revised quote based on the fact that we had by then already sourced 2nd hand parquet blocks for the installation. While waiting for a revised quote, we sent him the parquet blocks to inspect as he said he would have to clean them before installation. We reminded him more than once to provide a revised quote which he eventually sent to us a week after he received the blocks. We made it clear that we would only give him the go ahead on the job once we'd received the revised quote and was satisfied with it. We never gave any instruction to Charl to start the process of cleaning the blocks. Once we received the revised quote, we were put off by the cost which was much higher than any other quotes we had previously received. We were also dismayed to find out that he started cleaning the blocks without being instructed to do so. Charl insisted that we pay him R11,000 for the cleaning of the 44 sqm of parquet blocks. He admitted on a phone call that his labour costs were R4,500 for the cleaning job and I offered to pay him R7,500 as a compromise and to settle the matter amicably. Charl refused this offer and has refused to give our parquet blocks back unless we settle the full R11,000 he wanted. Based on further enquiries I've made about the cost of cleaning these types of blocks, this amount is excessively high especially since Charl admitted that his labour costs were only R4,500. The fact that we also did not instruct him to clean the blocks, means that he is now refusing to give back our rightful property. We plan to pursue this further via the available legal avenues.