Disappearing Contractor
We’re in the middle of a total renovation of our kitchen – and the contractor is not returning phone messages, has left his tools here, and is generally dragging his feet. He has gotten most of his fee, and I don’t know what else to do. The owner is the one who I contact -…
We’re in the middle of a total renovation of our kitchen – and the contractor is not returning phone messages, has left his tools here, and is generally dragging his feet. He has gotten most of his fee, and I don’t know what else to do. The owner is the one who I contact – but he isn’t a builder – just a young businessman. He has several jobs currently, and it seems he is just prioritizing other jobs over ours. This man is extremely arrogant and defensive, and I want to be careful about threatening him. At the same time, we want our job to be done – it’s been over 3 months since they began!
Advice, please?
I wonder if were dealing with the same contractor here (name begins with a N), if so I’d be interested in speaking with you? I’ve had this on-going problem with my contractor now for almost a year.
Our neighbor got burned in a similar fashion by Leon Alfonso-an unlicensed contractor who was later featured on Help Me Howard.
They took him to small claims court and were awarded $$ which was never collected as he declared bankruptcy. We have been told that Leon is “back in Business” in the Park Slope area – so post this just in case you come across him.
The attorney is going to cost you more than it would cost to just wait it out and let this guy finish the work. There must be a reason he’s not there that you are not telling us. Most home owners are friggin’ nuts and they drive the contractor mad.
what a mess. most of the advice here is useless and wrong.
you need to hire an attorney. now.
A good attorney will strip the egos from the equation. S/he will act as a neutral third party and help everyone get what they bargained for. Litigation is one of many possible tools. Our firm is one of the largest real estate firms in New York City. The website is http://www.borahgoldstein.com.
Post company’s name here and see if that gets results. Sorry all you posters making excuses — the original poster said that the contractor was simply missing in action. For how long? Why hasn’t the contractor contacted poster and told him why no one has shown up? If it’s just for a day or two, no problem, but if no workers have shown up for 2 weeks and the contractor refuses to tell the client why, I would certainly want to know who this person is so I can avoid that company at all costs. I don’t care how great someone’s work is, or how reasonable he may be for good work — if the person can’t be professional and respond to legitimate questions with common courtesy, I don’t want to work with him.
I know there are 2 sides to every issue, but there’s really no excuse for not explaining why a job is taking so long to someone who has paid you good money.
How many times do we need some crap service provider to chant “you get what you pay for”!? I could post that my dog was fucking hit by a car and some twat builder/architect/painter/plumber and so on would somehow link it to what I paid workers in my home.
For all you architects (and you’re by far the worst offenders) who paid out the ass for your educations only to find you aren’t going to be Frank Gehry or Richard Meier – get over it. And the rest of you GED losers turned hammer swingers – maybe YOU got what you paid for.
I don’t know why people are saying that it has taken too long. I don’t think that you have discussed the scale of the project, the size of your kitchen or whether you are having custom work done. My kitchen took this long and there were people working everyday. I will tell you from experience that it is almost impossible to get a good contractor to finish another contractors incomplete project. Hang in there.
How squeamish you need to be about being sued depends upon the circumstances. In fact, if the contractor, after all the efforts recommended above, does not respond and come back to finish the job, then it is the contractor who has fired you (legal term — breached) not the other way around and, if it costs you more to get the job done than was left to be paid the contractor, you may have to sue the contractor to get it. And if you make lots of attempts to get teh contractor to come back and he doesn’t, contractor doesn’t really have a leg to stand on if he sues. Just because he sues doesn’t mean you lose (no, I am not Johnny Cochrane).
Of course, all this only matters if there is enough money at stake to make the lawsutis worthwhile. Attorneys walk away from bogus cases pretty fast if they see you are resolute and there is no money in it for them.
So all I was suggesting was to position yourself well in case it comes to this. 9:41 and Donatella made great points on attempting to reach the GC and up the ante on his noncompliance while building a record. My suggestions above were simply to also figure out where you stand financially on the contract so you can make informed decisions down the road. Even if the GC coems back, yu will have a better sense of where you stands and when and how much you should pay as work proceeds, in case this BS starts up again.
12:37 is right that, should it get that far, you should talk to an attorney, but don’t let the fear of a lawsuit prevent you from gathering information, building a record and positioning yourself in case you need it. Everyone’s situation is different.