What is the name of your state? Louisiana
My house suffered pretty extensive wind damage during Katrina and I settled with insurance for a new slate roof. I put a deposit down with a company and signed a contract agreeing that the balance would be paid upon completion of the job and receipt of insurance funds. The contract was signed in February, and the roofing crew finished the job in April with the exception of a few minor repairs that the contractor assured us would be completed. I received an invoice for several thousand dollars more than the contract price a few weeks later. My husband and I attempted to contact our contractor to discuss this, but he never returned our calls and his office phone has been disconnected. The central company is located in Oklahoma, and a few weeks later someone knocked on our door claiming to be a representative from the company coming to collect on the job (he also told us that our contractor was no longer with the company). My husband explained that the invoice was incorrect and that there was some remaining work to do, and the rep seemed nice enough and said that the company would take care of it. He returned the next week with another rep and they took a closer look at the roof, and we've never heard from him since. This was over a month ago. Since then, we've made repeated calls to the Oklahoma office (as well as to this rep's cell phone) but no one is responding.
So, here's my question: I have the money to settle the contract, and I'm certainly willing to pay provided that the company holds up their end of the deal, but how long am I legally expected to wait for the company to contact us before we move forward? If they have no intention of making the necessary repairs, we can hire someone else to do it, but then we would certainly want to deduct this expense from the amounts owed. There are substantial amounts of money involved here (over 13K) and we don't want to have this hanging over our heads indefinitely. What would you advise that we do?
My house suffered pretty extensive wind damage during Katrina and I settled with insurance for a new slate roof. I put a deposit down with a company and signed a contract agreeing that the balance would be paid upon completion of the job and receipt of insurance funds. The contract was signed in February, and the roofing crew finished the job in April with the exception of a few minor repairs that the contractor assured us would be completed. I received an invoice for several thousand dollars more than the contract price a few weeks later. My husband and I attempted to contact our contractor to discuss this, but he never returned our calls and his office phone has been disconnected. The central company is located in Oklahoma, and a few weeks later someone knocked on our door claiming to be a representative from the company coming to collect on the job (he also told us that our contractor was no longer with the company). My husband explained that the invoice was incorrect and that there was some remaining work to do, and the rep seemed nice enough and said that the company would take care of it. He returned the next week with another rep and they took a closer look at the roof, and we've never heard from him since. This was over a month ago. Since then, we've made repeated calls to the Oklahoma office (as well as to this rep's cell phone) but no one is responding.
So, here's my question: I have the money to settle the contract, and I'm certainly willing to pay provided that the company holds up their end of the deal, but how long am I legally expected to wait for the company to contact us before we move forward? If they have no intention of making the necessary repairs, we can hire someone else to do it, but then we would certainly want to deduct this expense from the amounts owed. There are substantial amounts of money involved here (over 13K) and we don't want to have this hanging over our heads indefinitely. What would you advise that we do?