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Contractor from HELL!!

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Clarence

Junior Member
What is the name of your state? VIRGINIA (No. VA)

we hired a contractor to renovate our 3 full bathrooms and 1 Half bathroom and a spigot would be replaced in the backyard. References were checked, contract was written up with the information we had discussed, price, what the job involved, etc.

He had originally told us that it would take him about a week or 2 to finsh each bathroom, was not added to the contract. The contract states that he would pay $700 credit towards each bathroom(so total $2100), but was later agreed that we would get most of the materials and he would just credit us for this. This was never amended in the contract, but is obviously traceable as well, through the receipts that show that we bought almost all of the stuff with our credit card that is in the bathrooms. He did pay for the tile but the contract says that he would pay the full cost of tile as long as its below a certain amount, which it was.

We paid him in 4 or 5 installments, and every time my husband paid him, he got the amount that was hand written on the back of the page signed off by him. Next to the last installment he added, "paid in full" and signed it. All payments were made either in regular or home equity checks and fully traceable to his name(he owns the company).

Once he was all done with the 3 full bathrooms, he started on the half bath and after starting to put the sink in, said that he needed some more materials to finish up the job. My husband knows not to pay the full amount for a job until it is absolutely finished, but by now, didn't want the relationship to get any rockier and paid the guy since he said he would mark off the contract paid in full and then finish up the rest of the stuff in the following day/week. Then his story changed to that the contract only stated(which it does) that he would "replace the cabinet and sink in the half bath" and that it meant that it had to be a regular traditional cabinet/sink, as opposed to the more contemporary vessel sink that we had purchased.

When I confronted him about breaking the contract to which he kept babbling off that he had done everything that he had promised and that infact we had not paid him for everything and that we had paid him $200 or $300 short and that he was going to talk to his Company lawyer to see if he could file a lien against our house. Since I work in the real estate field and knew most of these were empty threats, but did not want to deal with this guy any longer, attempted to end the conversation in a more civil manner than he was speaking to me. He said that he would drop off the garage door opener that day(as I had asked, b/c we needed it to get plumber estimate) and that after that we were done and that he was glad that he was done w/ our project b/c we had not been nice to him?!....I'm not sure what that means or where that came from, as short of our rights to request for additional cost reasoning we had not asked anything much of him. He dropped off our garage door opener that day and we have not had any contact with him since.

My husband is a bit more laxed than me, and states that we should cut our losses, pay the $400(estimate we got from another plumber) and have this horrible person out of our lives. I on the other hand, realize that the risks of letting him go without being disciplined in any way, means that some other innocent person may be at the risk of having to be cheated by him. Also, I spoke to my broker for some advice from his expertise and he mentioned that though the contract was only one page, it clearly stated the duties he were to perform and the hand written and stamped paid and the last "paid in full" with his signature on the back of that contract page. The contract page states that the final amount is $600 higher than what all the paid amounts on the back of the contract page add upto. This is only due to the fact that I stated earlier that since it was agreed that we would pay for most of the bathroom materials(cabinets, faucets, shower door, etc) that the $2100 credit will be applied to the final cost(this is again traceable but he didn't provide receipts). He did end up paying for a small amount of the materials cost, but if all added up in the end, we paid him over the amount that he should have received doing the math. Needless to say it took him from 1st week of March to Mid-May to do all that he did accomplish that is in the contract. Thanks for any advice!

Questions:
1. Does this contractor have a leg to stand on stating that he will put a lein on our house for the $200/300 he is saying we owe him? On the back page of the contract he has clearly signed off "paid in full" with his signature. If anything, adding up all the payments and taking off the credits, we paid him over the amount decided!

2. How should we proceed re: his breach of contract. Should we just file complaints with the BBB, DPOR and the County licensing board? OR should we go after him through an attorney in court. Since all the undone work(spigots, half bath) will prob be under a 1000, not sure if thats worth the time or effort or the risk that we may not win and pay the attorney fees?!

What is the name of your State VIRGINIA (Northern)
 
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seniorjudge

Senior Member
Clarence said:
What is the name of your state? VIRGINIA (No. VA)

Last week of Feb 2006 we hired this contractor that we had met coincidently a few months back and thought may be a good person to hire to renovate the bathrooms in our townhome. After researching a decent amount about the steps we need to take to protect ourselves, we asked for his references, met them at their house with him and when it looked like a he had done a good job, asked him to write up a contract with the information we had discussed, price, what the job involved, etc.
He had originally told us that it would take him about a week or 2 to finsh each bathroom. We were getting 3 done(1 was roughed in that we were putting in). Also there is a 4th half bath, that he mentioned that he would "throw in" if he got the job as well as do some smaller stuff, like replace the backyard spigot for free. The relationship seemed to start rocky as he not a very polite person to speak to and actually I would describe his attitude as straight out rude. But since we had seen his work in the other homes, and spoken to the other people, decided that we would bite our tongues and get the job done that we hired him for, and ignore his manners. He seemed to get quite annoyed when we would ask him what he was raising the cost for, of if he would have to go at all out of his way to pick up the materials or such. We paid him in 4 or 5 installments, and every time my husband paid him, he got the amount that was hand written on the back of the page signed off by him. Next to the last installment he added, "paid in full" and signed it. All payments were made either in regular or home equity checks and fully traceable to his name(he owns the company).
The contract states that he would pay $700 credit towards each bathroom(so total $2100), since he was getting such an attitude going to pick up the materials for us, it was agreed that we would get most of the materials and he would just credit us for this. This was never amended in the contract, but is obviously traceable as well, through the receipts that show that we bought almost all of the stuff with our credit card that is in the bathrooms. He did pay for the tile but the contract says that he would pay the full cost of tile as long as its below a certain amount, which it was.
Once he was all done with the 3 full bathrooms, he started on the half bath and after starting to put the sink in, stated that he was missing the piece and he would finish the job the next day once he was able to find the piece to finish the plumbing. My husband knows not to pay the full amount for a job until it is absolutely finished, but by now, didn't want the relationship to get any rockier and paid the guy. Well the next day he claimed that it wasn't just the piece missing, but he really didn't know how to do the plumbing for a vessel sink as opposed to the regular sink that we had in there earlier and that the contract only stated(which it does) that he would "replace the cabinet and sink in the half bath" and that it meant that it had to be a regular traditional cabinet/sink, as opposed to the more contemporary vessel sink that we had purchased. Mind you that this sink had been sitting in the garage for him to inspect(and he did) for a month before it was installed, and had mentioned that it may need additional plumbing.
So now that he mentioned that he didn't know how to do the job and needed to hire a plumber which would involve more cost, and we had said ok to this. Then we didn't hear from him for a week cause he kept telling us he's trying to find someone and finally called and said that all the plumbers he knew were busy. After the initial shock set in we asked him if when he would be coming back to finish the spigot in the backyard, he starting babbling off(his English is very broken, so we caught most but not all of what he said) that he was already losing money on our job and would no longer put any more time into it. At this point we obviously had had it, and told him he was breaking the contract to which he kept babbling off that he had done everything that he had promised and that infact we had not paid him for everything and that we had paid him $200 or $300 short and that he was going to file a lien against our house. Since I am a part time realtor and knew most of these were empty threats, but did not want to deal with this guy any longer, attempted to end the conversation in a more civil manner than he was speaking to me. He said that he would drop off the garage door opener that day(as I had asked, b/c we needed it to get plumber estimate) and that after that we were done and that he was glad that he was done w/ our project b/c we had not been nice to him?!....I'm not sure what that means or where that came from, as short of our rights to request for additional cost reasoning we had not asked anything much of him. He on the other hand was nothing short of a ill tempered and badly behaved individual. He dropped off our garage door opener that day and we have not had any contact with him since.
My husband is a bit more laxed than me, and states that we should cut our losses, pay the $400(estimate we got from another plumber) and have this horrible person out of our lives. I on the other hand, realize that the risks of letting him go without being disciplined in any way, means that some other innocent person may be at the risk of having to be cheated by him. Also, I spoke to my broker for some advice from his expertise and he mentioned that though the contract was only one page, it clearly stated the duties he were to perform and the hand written and stamped paid and the last "paid in full" with his signature on the back of that contract page. Also, the only thing I'm worried about, but everyone I've consulted so far stated that I do not need to worry about is that the contract page states that the final amount is $600 higher than what all the paid amounts in the back add upto. This is only due to the fact that I stated earlier that since it was agreed that we would pay for most of the bathroom materials(cabinets, faucets, shower door, etc) that the $2100 credit will be applied to the final cost(this is again traceable as he needs to produce receipts and he has not yet done so, but I would imagine would need to if dragged into court?). He did end up paying for a small amount of the materials cost, but if all added up in the end, we paid him over the amount that he should have received doing the math. Needless to say it took him from 1st week of March to Mid-May to do all that he did accomplish that is in the contract.
PLEASE ADVISE AND HELP!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!! What is the name of your state? VIRGINIA (Alexandria)

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