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Bathroom Remodeling Nightmare

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K

klrwar

Guest
I also posted this same question on "Contracts & Guarantees"....

I live in Pennsylvania.

I signed a contract on 3/30/03 for the remodeling of my master bathroom. The contract stated that the project was to start on 4/15/03 and last "2-3 weeks". I gave a deposit of 1/3 down, and was supposed to give another 1/3 when all "framing, plumbing and electrical wiring work was done".

The guy started on 4/16/03 and ripped my entire bathroom out according to contract (my 4 BDRM, 2 & 1/2 Bath house is now a 4 Bdrm, 1 & 1/2 Bath house w/ 2 adults and 2 kids living there). He started the framing (now 75% done) and an electrician showed up and did his wiring portion (75% of the total electrical work).

On 4/25/03 the general contractor came to me and said he needed more money (amounting to about 1/2 of the next 1/3) (1) because the tub and the new window we picked out were more money than he expected, (2) he needed it to pay the electrician and (3) the plumber needed money upfront.

After we gave him that second money everything went bad. The guy has only come back and did minimal work and "the plumber" has never showed up. For over a month he has only returned about 1 out of every 8 of our messages, he says he going to show up for work and doesn't, etc. Finally he came to me on 6/4/03 and said that "the IRS froze my bank accounts and I need more money to get the tub and the window from the suppliers" - we already gave him EXTRA money to pay for both of these things in full!!!

At that point we said that we want to sit down with him and go over all of our concerns and come up with a plan for continuing. We scheduled two meetings for this purpose and both times he just didn't show up, no call, etc. We also left him a message saying to call us back or we are going to consider that "you abadoned the job".

It has been almost a week from the day we left that last message and we are considering what to do next.

We feel at this point that if he would just "nicely" refund us ~$2,000 we would be content with just "moving on" with other contractors, etc. and getting the job done on our own.

However I want to protect myself legally, keeping the following itmes in mind -

* I don't want to do anything that will limit our ability to sue for more money than the 2K in case this gets ugly - AND -
* I want to be able to get other contractors in ASAP to complete the project because my house has been down a bathroom for more than 2 months when it was only supposed to be for 2-3 weeks!!!

Help!!!

KLR

:(
 


HomeGuru

Senior Member
klrwar said:
I also posted this same question on "Contracts & Guarantees"....

I live in Pennsylvania.

I signed a contract on 3/30/03 for the remodeling of my master bathroom. The contract stated that the project was to start on 4/15/03 and last "2-3 weeks". I gave a deposit of 1/3 down, and was supposed to give another 1/3 when all "framing, plumbing and electrical wiring work was done".

The guy started on 4/16/03 and ripped my entire bathroom out according to contract (my 4 BDRM, 2 & 1/2 Bath house is now a 4 Bdrm, 1 & 1/2 Bath house w/ 2 adults and 2 kids living there). He started the framing (now 75% done) and an electrician showed up and did his wiring portion (75% of the total electrical work).

On 4/25/03 the general contractor came to me and said he needed more money (amounting to about 1/2 of the next 1/3) (1) because the tub and the new window we picked out were more money than he expected, (2) he needed it to pay the electrician and (3) the plumber needed money upfront.

After we gave him that second money everything went bad. The guy has only come back and did minimal work and "the plumber" has never showed up. For over a month he has only returned about 1 out of every 8 of our messages, he says he going to show up for work and doesn't, etc. Finally he came to me on 6/4/03 and said that "the IRS froze my bank accounts and I need more money to get the tub and the window from the suppliers" - we already gave him EXTRA money to pay for both of these things in full!!!

At that point we said that we want to sit down with him and go over all of our concerns and come up with a plan for continuing. We scheduled two meetings for this purpose and both times he just didn't show up, no call, etc. We also left him a message saying to call us back or we are going to consider that "you abadoned the job".

It has been almost a week from the day we left that last message and we are considering what to do next.

We feel at this point that if he would just "nicely" refund us ~$2,000 we would be content with just "moving on" with other contractors, etc. and getting the job done on our own.

However I want to protect myself legally, keeping the following itmes in mind -

* I don't want to do anything that will limit our ability to sue for more money than the 2K in case this gets ugly - AND -
* I want to be able to get other contractors in ASAP to complete the project because my house has been down a bathroom for more than 2 months when it was only supposed to be for 2-3 weeks!!!

Help!!!

KLR

:(
**A: terminate his contract via certified rrr mail and proceed to hire another contractor. You can sue for damages later.
 

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