Can anybody recommend a reliable construction contract lawyer?

You haven’t found the right contractor if you are already thinking about things going wrong and suing.  Keep looking, and look at the right type of contractor.  Not the fly by night kind of guys.

nycdesigner

in Roofers 12 years ago

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pdiddy | 12 years and 1 month ago

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Looking for a construction contract lawyer to review the contractor before we hire a contractor for renovation in Brooklyn.  This lawyer also needs to be able to sue that contractor if things don’t go well. Please include your experience with them

greenmountain | 12 years and 1 month ago

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Have you considered hiring a licensed contractor?  The Dept of Consumer Affairs already pays for your lawyers, and as a licensed contractor, I pay the DCA, so they can employ your lawyers.  If you don’t hire a licensed contractor, it is harder for the DCA (or any lawyers) to catch your guys, and I don’t know why you should be entitled to any of the bond fund I pay in to either. Will your contractor present you with certificates of insurance naming you as the certificate holder?  Without valid insurance, do you think you will recover any money?  If you don’t recover any money, and you hire a good lawyer, you will lose the money you pay to the lawyer too. Please see the prior post by Cashzone.  It would be really easy, if I were your contractor to commit insurance fraud.  Do you think my insurance company would pay a claim to you, if they could see I was misrepresenting my business activities?   Yet, for just 2% of your check to me, I could deceive my insurance companies, and save a lot more money, which I would use to lower my bid below properly-insured, higher priced contractors. Oh yea, if I cashed your check made out to my business for $10,000, I would also have to pay the laundromat an additional $5, so that would be $205.00 or 2.05% to screw everything up, like usual.   Why not pay what it costs and hire a licensed contractor, with both liability and workers’ comp insurance, to do it right, to begin with?

c_w | 12 years and 1 month ago

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A lawyer could review the contract but I don’t think they could review a contractor in a meaningful way. References from previous projects should be your best bet for that. If you want the contract reviewed I’m guessing the contractor is not providing a thorough enough document. In this case, you can use one of the standard AIA contracts between owner and contractor. AIA stands for American Institute of Architects. You can pick a contract appropriate for the scope of work you need, see more info. here: http://www.aia.org/contractdocs/AIAB097359 These are very good contracts and should things go badly you could hire a lawyer then with the AIA contract to back you up. You can download the contracts here: https://documentsondemand.aia.org/frmOnlineProductList.aspx Regardless of any of this, you should hire a licensed contractor as Greenmt says.

Erstwhile | 12 years ago

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A certificate of insurance is meaningless, as it is not evidence that insurance exists as indicated in the standard disclaimer stated on the Acord’s upper right hand corner.  Request copies of the dec pages and confirm the coverages.  Have yourself added as an additional insured on ISO Form CG 20 10 or equivalent broad-form coverage and obtain underwriting confirmation that the policy has been endorsed.  Do these two important things, and exericse due diligence in selecting a contractor, and you will a step ahead.  The liabilty carrier is not the contractor’s surety, so if they f*** up their performance or breach the contract you’ll still be out of pocket.  Which brings us back to c_w’s sound advice, research your contractor, check references, see other work (in progress if possible), check their license status, how long they’ve been in business, etc.

josh moynahan | 12 years ago

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and the best advice of all – do not go into any sort of business venture with the expectation that you may have to sue someone.  If you proceed with that attitude, you will invite trouble and end up in court.   Even better advice would be to change your screen id.  PDiddy is a convicted felon, someone who assaults his business rivals and carries illeagal firearms.  if this is who you aspire to be, the imagination sees no bounds as to how difficult you may be to work with if a problem arieses.   Contractors, run from this customer.