What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? California.. On the 18th of jan 2013..My mother hired a roofing contractor and gave him a 3,000 check for deposit for 'materials. The contractor said he would be there(our home) to begin removal of current roof and to drop of the materials he was going to purchase with the deposit. My mother has this contract in writing. However there is no contract lic. on the hand written contract. When he did not show the following weekend like promised....i asked to see the contract and was quite upset at my mother for giving this guy 3,000 deposit when the norm is 10% of the cost of the total job..which would have been like 800.00 dollars. I of course called and called and callled...no answer..I left several voice messages and finally after about 2 weeks...He answers his phone(i called from a different number) and states that he has been ill...in and out of the hospital....but he is better now and will be at our home the following Saturday...never shows up and doesnt answer phone for 3 more weeks.
In the meantime it has rained and snowed and the roof is leaking inside the house on my mothers new slate tile....and staining the mahogany open beams ...making my mother very difficult to live with
It is now the end of Feb...and finally after several threatening phone calls(messages) from me the contractor calls and says that he doesnt like being referred to as a thief and a lier and says he is simply going to refund the 3000 dollars and proceeds to ask for our mailing address(we only have po boxes in the san bernardino mountains). Of course several weeks go by and several more phone calls made, no refund check received and now phone number is disconnected....
I go to the cal contractors lic board website and file a complaint. I also searched on that website to see the status of his contractors lic...or if he even had one. The search turned up nothing. My mother assumed he had a lic because he was wearing a local roofing company shirt and told her he worked for this company and thats why he would be working on weekends only. My mother trusted this man, he actually did a patch job of the roof for 400 dollars....and when the roof continued to leak..he came back 3 separate times at no charge to fix or re patch. When she finally decided to replace the roof..the contractor gave her a 400 credit towards the new roof and this is reflected in the contract he signed on the 18th of jan.
Feeling helpless with no way to contact this guy...I decide to go the the san bernardino county court website to see if this guy has a criminal record and to see if he has any civil cases pending. To my surprise this man has a lengthy criminal record for spousal abuse 2010(currently on probation) and 2 felony convictions for illegal use of a fire arm.2011(still on probation.and also a conviction for working without a contractors lic. back in 2003. His most recent violation was on Jan 20th 2013, when he was arrested in palm springs cal for pc 11550 being under the influence and pos. of a controlled substance. This happened 2 days after he picked up and cashed the 3,000 check from my mother.. He posted a 2500.00 bail(my mothers money)and was released.
After finding out this information I drove down to the county court house and located his probation officer. I explained to him what had transpired over the last couple of months. I new the contractor was in violation of probation due to the jan 20th incident and I wanted to make sure his probation officer new about the new violation...since it happened in another county...and sometimes county's dont communicate. The officer said that he would put some pressure on his for lack of a better word "client" to see if he would at least communicate with us and try to rectify the situation. I has now been one week and the contractor has not contacted us.
Question: I understand this is a civil case...breach of contract etc.. However because of his record and his probationary status....cant I file a policed report and get the D.A to charge him with some sort of criminal offense?
In the meantime it has rained and snowed and the roof is leaking inside the house on my mothers new slate tile....and staining the mahogany open beams ...making my mother very difficult to live with
It is now the end of Feb...and finally after several threatening phone calls(messages) from me the contractor calls and says that he doesnt like being referred to as a thief and a lier and says he is simply going to refund the 3000 dollars and proceeds to ask for our mailing address(we only have po boxes in the san bernardino mountains). Of course several weeks go by and several more phone calls made, no refund check received and now phone number is disconnected....
I go to the cal contractors lic board website and file a complaint. I also searched on that website to see the status of his contractors lic...or if he even had one. The search turned up nothing. My mother assumed he had a lic because he was wearing a local roofing company shirt and told her he worked for this company and thats why he would be working on weekends only. My mother trusted this man, he actually did a patch job of the roof for 400 dollars....and when the roof continued to leak..he came back 3 separate times at no charge to fix or re patch. When she finally decided to replace the roof..the contractor gave her a 400 credit towards the new roof and this is reflected in the contract he signed on the 18th of jan.
Feeling helpless with no way to contact this guy...I decide to go the the san bernardino county court website to see if this guy has a criminal record and to see if he has any civil cases pending. To my surprise this man has a lengthy criminal record for spousal abuse 2010(currently on probation) and 2 felony convictions for illegal use of a fire arm.2011(still on probation.and also a conviction for working without a contractors lic. back in 2003. His most recent violation was on Jan 20th 2013, when he was arrested in palm springs cal for pc 11550 being under the influence and pos. of a controlled substance. This happened 2 days after he picked up and cashed the 3,000 check from my mother.. He posted a 2500.00 bail(my mothers money)and was released.
After finding out this information I drove down to the county court house and located his probation officer. I explained to him what had transpired over the last couple of months. I new the contractor was in violation of probation due to the jan 20th incident and I wanted to make sure his probation officer new about the new violation...since it happened in another county...and sometimes county's dont communicate. The officer said that he would put some pressure on his for lack of a better word "client" to see if he would at least communicate with us and try to rectify the situation. I has now been one week and the contractor has not contacted us.
Question: I understand this is a civil case...breach of contract etc.. However because of his record and his probationary status....cant I file a policed report and get the D.A to charge him with some sort of criminal offense?