What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? New York
I am looking for advice on how to proceed.
Long Story Short: We lost our home and personal belongings to a house fire in June. Contractor appeared very helpful when assisting us to navigate how to rebuild our home. Now it's October and he is acting like a junkie seeking his next fix. Our mortgage company disperses the money to the contractor as agreed upon in our contract. He has been asking us for more money despite being paid $45,000. He agreed to pay for all permits and the remainder of the architects fees after we signed the contract. We initially paid $1500 for the architect before we agreed to have this contractor build our home. I obtained the demolition permit as per the contractors instructions, which cost me $100. As I said it is October and our home is not any closer to being ready. In the 2 months that we have had the demo permit he gutted a 810 sq. ft. area. He has not worked on the house in over 2 weeks, but now asked of the second payment from our mortgage company and he asked us for $800 for the architect this past Monday. Our mortgage company is scheduled to come out next Tuesday for an inspection. As per my mortgage company they will approve additional funds based on the amount of work completed, so I am doubtful that they will release additional funds.
What is causing me to be concerned is: He removed all wiring, gutters, copper, brass and steel from the house right before he left for a small vacation. C'mon the gutters. He leaves a whole house intact except for where he needs to cut to get the materials. He has been telling me things that I do not want in my house (ie..glass shower stall, extra kitchen cabinets, ceiling fan outlets in the bedrooms and living room.) These items were agreed upon before we signed the contract and are on the blue prints. I do not trust him anymore to build our home. I do wonder if he stopped working because he is waiting for us to give in and write him a personal check.
I confronted him yesterday and he acted as though I was the one who was loosing her mind. He was told on Weds that we would meet with him Friday to discuss the house. He waited outside our burnt out home for an hour waiting for us to come by and give him additional money. My neighbor called my cell because he thought that it was odd that someone was knocking on the door and in my back yard. My husband went to the house and asked him what he was doing and he said that he was in the area so he came by to see if we were available. He showed up at 8 AM yesterday at our temporary home to discuss money. This made me really angry. I pointed out to him that we have been cooperative with all of his requests and that we (The customers/Home owners) stated that we were not available to meet until Friday, but he still shows up asking for money. After arguing with him for 15 minutes I asked him how he would feel if we went to his house and knocked on his doors and windows asking for him to finally demo our house. He told me to calm down. Really...don't tell a woman to calm down when you show up unannounced and uninvited asking for more money for a job that is not being done.
What do we do? I am not meeting with this man today. I do not have the patience anymore for him to not answer a simple questions "why do you need more money?"
HELP!!!
I am looking for advice on how to proceed.
Long Story Short: We lost our home and personal belongings to a house fire in June. Contractor appeared very helpful when assisting us to navigate how to rebuild our home. Now it's October and he is acting like a junkie seeking his next fix. Our mortgage company disperses the money to the contractor as agreed upon in our contract. He has been asking us for more money despite being paid $45,000. He agreed to pay for all permits and the remainder of the architects fees after we signed the contract. We initially paid $1500 for the architect before we agreed to have this contractor build our home. I obtained the demolition permit as per the contractors instructions, which cost me $100. As I said it is October and our home is not any closer to being ready. In the 2 months that we have had the demo permit he gutted a 810 sq. ft. area. He has not worked on the house in over 2 weeks, but now asked of the second payment from our mortgage company and he asked us for $800 for the architect this past Monday. Our mortgage company is scheduled to come out next Tuesday for an inspection. As per my mortgage company they will approve additional funds based on the amount of work completed, so I am doubtful that they will release additional funds.
What is causing me to be concerned is: He removed all wiring, gutters, copper, brass and steel from the house right before he left for a small vacation. C'mon the gutters. He leaves a whole house intact except for where he needs to cut to get the materials. He has been telling me things that I do not want in my house (ie..glass shower stall, extra kitchen cabinets, ceiling fan outlets in the bedrooms and living room.) These items were agreed upon before we signed the contract and are on the blue prints. I do not trust him anymore to build our home. I do wonder if he stopped working because he is waiting for us to give in and write him a personal check.
I confronted him yesterday and he acted as though I was the one who was loosing her mind. He was told on Weds that we would meet with him Friday to discuss the house. He waited outside our burnt out home for an hour waiting for us to come by and give him additional money. My neighbor called my cell because he thought that it was odd that someone was knocking on the door and in my back yard. My husband went to the house and asked him what he was doing and he said that he was in the area so he came by to see if we were available. He showed up at 8 AM yesterday at our temporary home to discuss money. This made me really angry. I pointed out to him that we have been cooperative with all of his requests and that we (The customers/Home owners) stated that we were not available to meet until Friday, but he still shows up asking for money. After arguing with him for 15 minutes I asked him how he would feel if we went to his house and knocked on his doors and windows asking for him to finally demo our house. He told me to calm down. Really...don't tell a woman to calm down when you show up unannounced and uninvited asking for more money for a job that is not being done.
What do we do? I am not meeting with this man today. I do not have the patience anymore for him to not answer a simple questions "why do you need more money?"
HELP!!!
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