Lawyer reco

We are dealing with an extremely uncooperative electrician who is now holding up closing out our job which should have been finalized months ago. He is now claiming we owe him several thousand dollars more than the contracted amount, although he received two final payment checks – one per the contract amount and one to cover verbal overages, one of which says Final Per Contract and the second check which says FINAL PAYMENT FOR JOB. Suddenly he is changing his tune and saying that actually, we owe him more money. He will not return to correct violations on the inspection report, saying he will get around to it when he has time, but we owe him another large sum of money. Advice and lawyer recommendations would be welcome. Thank you!

miss718

in Renovation 10 years and 10 months ago

1

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slopefarm | 10 years and 10 months ago

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A dispute over several thousand dollars is not worth a lawyer. You will pay the lawyer more than s/he will save you. I would deal only in writing until you get a result. Write a short letter stating that on [date] you gave him check #__ as the final payment on the contract amount and check # __ as the agreed amount for [list of agreed change orders]. State you are up to date on all payments but that he is required to close out the job. [For future — never pay in full until the job is closed out — there should always be something held back; you got ahead of the contractor and now he doesn’t wan to do work he’s already been paid for]. If he claims he’s owed money, ask him to produce an accounting of what it is for. that way you have a paper trail of what’s in dispute. Also, get an estimate from another electrician to finish the job. that way, you can go to small claims court and seek money (the amounht needed to pay someone else to finish) since you can’t get small claims to order your electrician to finish, you can only get money. I will leave it to others whether it is good or bad for you to complain (or to threaten to complain) to Bureau of Electrical Control, or Consumer Affairs, etc.