HAVE SOMETHING DONE..

CAUSATIVE HAVE

The grammar of "have something done"

have + object + past participle

 have — changeable part, can be conjugated, can be put into infinitive form or any verb
tense
 object — something we do the action with
 past participle — the third form of the main verb

We can make negative or question sentence by changing "have".

Sentence type have something done

Positive She has her hair cut.
Negative She doesn’t have her hair cut.
Question Does she have her hair cut?

We can also put "have something done" into any tense we need. All you have to do is put "have"
into this tense. The rest, the object and the past participle, remains unchanged.

Verb tense have something done

Present Simple I have my door painted.
Present Continuous I am having my door painted.
Present Perfect I have had my door painted.
Present Perfect Continuous I have been having my door painted.
Past Simple I had my door painted.
Past Continuous I was having my door painted.
Past Perfect I had had my door painted.
Past Perfect Continuous I had been having my door painted.
Future Simple I will have my door painted.
Future Continuous I will be having my door painted.
Future Perfect I will have had my door painted.
Future Perfect Continuous I will have been having my door painted.

We can also combine "have something done" with modal verbs (should, must, might…) and
verbs that require "to" (to be going to, want to, need to etc). In this case, we'll keep "have" in
the infinitive form.

Examples

Doctors say you should have your eyes tested every 2 years.

I must have my elbow joint examined.

Are you going to have this socket repaired at last?

We want to have our walls painted but we can’t decide about the colour.

Pay attention

The main verb (the past participle) goes after the object. Be careful with the word order!

Our neighbours are having a new house built.

If I have this coat altered a bit, it'll look really nice.

You can also use get instead of have. The meaning will be the same but "get something done" is
less formal.

Helen got her hair dyed pink. = had her hair dyed pink

We get sushi delivered if we don't feel like going out. = have sushi delivered

I need to get my nails done. = have my nails done

Have something done in a negative sense

We can use "have something done" to say that something bad was done to somebody by another
person.

Examples

Jeremy had his wallet stolen. His wallet was stolen.

Claude has his nose broken when he was playing volleyball. His nose was broken.

The company had its equipment confiscated. Its equipment was confiscated.