Excavator Issues

What is the name of your state? - Kansas

Just finished building a new home that we contracted ourselves for the most part. We did use a friend to help line up some contractors but he did not serve the role of General Contractor. One of the contractors he did line up was the excavator. About halfway through the excavation, the contractor told our friend that he found sand on the site and a engineer would be required to sign-off on the job. We verbally agreed to this but were lead to believe that it wouldn't be a huge incremental amount of work. One month after the work was completed we received invoices for over $36,000, more than 5 times the original estimate. I asked another engineer to review the invoices and he thought that we were severely being taken advantage of. We requested support for all the charges(i.e.invoices, bills of lading, engineering reports, etc.) from the contractor as support for the work and never heard back from him. Six months later, after we have already closed on our house, I get a letter from the contrator's attorney threatening an unjust enrichment claim. I still question whether the charges are valid given the shoddily constructed invoices, but am also wondering why a change order or a formal scope change wouldn't have been necessary for such a drastic change in work and price. Also curious if the lateness of the timing has any validity of his claim. Had he been responsive and we cleared these charges 3 months ago I could have done something about it. Since we moved forward, after not having heard from him, and closed the loan I don't have any means to pay. Any guidance would be appreciated.

Not knowing the actual wording of the contract you did have, most contain language re unforseen issues, sand would be such an issue and very appropriate for the additional engineering approval. You have heard the song about a wise man building his house upon the rock and what happens when you build it upon sand? This can be a very expensive deviation from the initial estimate. DO you have a copy of the engineering report or know the extent of the corrective work done? Just because you don't see it now doesn't mean it wasn't appropriate.

I have not yet seen the engineering report yet as that was one of the items I previously requested and never received. The issue my engineer had with the invoices was the volume of the special dirt (AB3) that we were invoiced for. His comment was that we got billed for enough to actually fill in the hole. Another note, the engineer I consulted with lives next door to the site and nobodoy else in the neighborhood has had any sand issues, plenty of rock issues but no sand.

But if he didn't examin the site, he can't say for sure. Did he happen to notice the work?

Ex Issues

Never answered the first part of your question. There is no formal written contract between myself and the excavator.

He didn't formally examine the site but he lived next door to it during the entire construction. That's the main reason we requested support for each invoiced amount, hoping to detemine if everything we were billed for was truly delivered to our site. When I said previously that the invoices were shoddy, I wasn't joking. Several charges are out of chronological order, we were billed for 14 hours of work on a single day (trust me I was up there everyday - no way that happened), we were billed for work on a Saturday( I was at the site every Saturday - it didn't happen) the trucking charges for the dirt cost almost as much the dirt and not rational based on the loads delivered (i.e. trucking delivery for 89.36 cuft - $1,904, trucking delivery for 320.71 cuft - 2,161.59). I was sure his lack of response to our inquiries were because he was dumping junk charges on us.

Has he placed a lein?
If he takes you to court there will be the opportunity for discovery.

No lien. I believe in Kansas he has 90 days after the last day of work to file a lien and that has obviously come and past. It has been 6 months since I've heard anything from him.

Curious, if this does eventually cost you 36K and up to 50K with his legal expenses added, not to mention your own expenses in fighting this, was it worth it to be your own GC?

Curious

So to speak, I would have had to pay the 36k, if it's valid, anyway. Teh only additional I would be out is any legal fees. It it ends up being 50k - it's probably a wash - not only did I save GC fees I also saved realtor fees.