ISO Construction Lawyer
I am looking for a lawyer who specialises in construction/home improvement disputes. To cut a very long story short —my home contractor abandoned our home renovation project. Apparently he had a family emergency in Canada which he told us would take a week. He was never seen again. He completed 60% of the work and…
I am looking for a lawyer who specialises in construction/home improvement disputes.
To cut a very long story short —my home contractor abandoned our home renovation project.
Apparently he had a family emergency in Canada which he told us would take a week. He was never seen again. He completed 60% of the work and been paid 90% of the money.
Of course he promised to come back and finish the project and even assured me he was pulling equity out of his house to finish mine — all lies.
I moved into the shell of a house sleeping on an aerobed with no electricity or running water and supervised the crew he left behind to finish the project as best i could until my money ran out.
Alot of work included in our original contract was not completed or started and I had to pay again for sub-contractors I’d already paid for. The plumbing, electric and final buildings dept inspections still need to be done.
For finishing the project and putting right alot of the contractors sloppy fixes has so far cost me in excess of $100k, not including all the pain and suffering.
I am looking for a lawyer who has experience in these sort of disputes. Does anybody have personal experience with a lawyer?
My advise to anybody considering a major renovation is get a lawyer.
Thank you so much in advance.
It might be useful to hire a private investigator to figure out if he’s got any assets before you start with lawyers. The international “Canada” thing could mean you’ll need to hire a bigger firm which means “very expensive.”
Have you filed a police report? The guy stole your money. There should be a warrant out for his arrest.
If he was licensed when you contracted, he had to post a bond with the DCA. You file a complaint, they investigate and if they find he owes you then it is paid from the bond, up to a certain dollar amount. Of course, it’s not that simple and it takes a long time. A few years ago, the max amount was $30k but it may be more now. File a complaint with them and follow up regularly – you really have to push them to get a response.
If you can’t find your contractor – and even if you can find him – he’s unlikely to have anything to collect on if you could win a suit. You’d just be paying lots of legal fees without much hope of collecting on a potential judgment.
It’s frustrating that there’s so little you can do. Go the DCA route first.
Good luck, c-hell. Thankfully, our guy abandoned the job much closer to the end, so the money disparity was too small to make a fuss over. Whatever lawyer you talk to, make sure you explore the issue of recovery up front, do asset searches, etc. You could win a lawsuit only to not recover a thing. That he’s out fo the country will make this mroe difficult at several levels. You have every right to be furious, but don’t let that throw off your cost-benefit analysis on litigation.
thanks giovanna, what sort of authority does the DCA have, do they have any legal rights? were you financially compensated by the contractor?
to denton, i do not wish to give the name of the contractor until the dispute has been settled. i’m not willing to jeopardize my position with any accusations of slander. as soon as i have closure i will happily publish the name of the contractor. however i am happy to identify who it isn’t if anyone would like to send me the name of the contractor they’re considering using i will respond.
I’m sure a number of people reading would appreciate the name of the contractor.
I went through almost the same disaster. Contact DCA they have there own court and judges. It is very informal hearing and you can represent yourself.
Sorry to hear about your situation, and understand you don’t want to be raked over the coals, but for the sake of those who haven’t yet gone down this road but are reading now:
An owner should never be in a position where you’ve paid for work that has not been done.
The only exception to this is for your initial payment, but this should be credited back to you immediately on the contractors first invoice.
Not only should owners not pay for work not done, you should withhold 10% on what has been done. So if your contractor’s done $60K of work, you’ve paid him $54K. You pay this retainage at the end of the job, when the punchlist is taken care of.
You also don’t pay for work that can’t be verified as having been done. So if the contractor wants $10K for the cabinets that are being worked on off site, unless he can show your cabinets, and that $10K of work is actually done, you don’t pay.
These are the rules of the road…any contractor who doesn’t want to abide by them should raise large, brightly colored, and vigorously waving red flags.
I hope you get your money back.
to eman1234,
of course i checked him out thoroughly, all came back good and clean. has all his licenses, insurance, good references etc. i guess some people are just dishonest scumbags.
btw i am not looking for a “shouldah, wouldah, couldah” thread.
as my post originally requested, can you recommend a good construction lawyer?
i am a brownstone owner, and also a contractor… did you not check out his references, etc?