What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? CO
We recently hired our next door neighbor/contractor to landscape our backyard. He in turn hired a subcontractor to do the patio portion. The first day the subcontractor was out, he constructed part of the framing for the patio and then told my husband he needed up front payment of $3000 for materials. My husband paid him not knowing that he was specifically told not to ask us for any money. Our neighbor came home an hour later and was furious to hear that he got a check from us and told us to stop payment on the check, which we did.
Our neighbor fired him and used different people to finish the work on our patio. We paid our neighbor upon completion of our backyard, and the subcontractor contacted us twice, both times we responded that our contract is not with him, it's with our neighbor.
3 weeks later, we get a call from a third party check cashing company saying they paid out our check to the subcontractor and need to collect from us since our bank did not cash our check. We explained that he misled us and we had no contract or agreement with him. We also explained that the subcontractor knew we stopped payment and cashed it anyway. They are claiming that non of this matters and threatening to take us to small claims court.
Do they really have recourse against us, when there was no contract, and this guy misled us into paying him?
We recently hired our next door neighbor/contractor to landscape our backyard. He in turn hired a subcontractor to do the patio portion. The first day the subcontractor was out, he constructed part of the framing for the patio and then told my husband he needed up front payment of $3000 for materials. My husband paid him not knowing that he was specifically told not to ask us for any money. Our neighbor came home an hour later and was furious to hear that he got a check from us and told us to stop payment on the check, which we did.
Our neighbor fired him and used different people to finish the work on our patio. We paid our neighbor upon completion of our backyard, and the subcontractor contacted us twice, both times we responded that our contract is not with him, it's with our neighbor.
3 weeks later, we get a call from a third party check cashing company saying they paid out our check to the subcontractor and need to collect from us since our bank did not cash our check. We explained that he misled us and we had no contract or agreement with him. We also explained that the subcontractor knew we stopped payment and cashed it anyway. They are claiming that non of this matters and threatening to take us to small claims court.
Do they really have recourse against us, when there was no contract, and this guy misled us into paying him?