Builder or Customer responsible?

[Flooringstore]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? North Carolina

I appoligize, I posted this under the the wrong thread the 1st time

I am the owner of a flooring store with a case I have not had to deal with before.

A builder that I work with sent a customer into my store with an allowence for carpet. She made it very clear that she had to stay in her allowence and was specific in what type of carpet (berber)she wanted. This limited her to a few selections, but she made her choice and seemed happy with it.

On day carpet was to be installed, builder had not properly fixed sub floor where walls had been removed. My installer installed the carpet over bad sub floor and gaps could be felt through the carpet and 6lb padding. After completing the job, Customer did not approve. I might add that I did not either. Customer then decided that 6lbs padding was not good enough and and wanted an up graded pad at no charge. Builder agreed to pay and we agreed to take up all of the carpet, replace pad, and reinstall carpet. I personally over saw this entire job to insure every thing was done correctly. When we left job site customer was happy with job.

Next thing I hear from builder is that customer is not satisfied with carpet quality and customer wants to retain $1900 from final bill to replace carpet with another flooring store and gets builder to write a contract for them to sign stating this. Here is what the contract says:
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Balance on existing contract Total - 9567.00

Customer is unsatisfied with new carpet. Customer will retain 1900.00 from "Flooring Store". Customer has demanded "Builder" to deduct 1900.00 from final bill as a condition of final payment. "Builder" will make no other attempts to collect the 1900.00 for "Flooring Store" per customer condition.

Balance 9567.00
"Flooring Store" -1900.00
7667.00
Other than carpet, customer is satisfied with job done. The job is complete.
-builder signature-
-customer wife signature-
-customer husband signature-
Final Bill Total due 7667.00
Thank you
------------------------------------------------------------------
I have made 4 attempts to contact the home owner to try to fix any problems, (which I still don't know what they are) and each time all I get is that she did not hire me and that she has paid the builder in full and to stop herrassing her because she has already ordered new carpet to be installed by another company. We are willing to repair anything, but customer will not let us in the house or tell us what is wrong.

Now that was a long story to get to this question. Who is responsible for paying me? Will a Lien on the house at this point do anything for our cause?
More to the point, who will I be taking to court?

If you are still with me, I could really use some advise.

Thanks

[Pojo]

Customer and builder and if this is just a matter of her not liking what she picked out then that is her problem.

I would definately take them to court to get paid IF you are sure the installation was above reproach.

If you get a judgment and neither want to pay then place the mechanics lien and then remember to renew it at each perio so the house can never be sold without you getting paid.

[Some Random Guy]

If you get a judgment and neither want to pay then place the mechanics lien and then...

Actually, in NC you need to place the lien on the property within 120 days of last delivering materials. Therefore this would be before you go to court and get a judgment.

Read up on the NC procedures for filing a lien.

[url=http://www.ncleg.net/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/HTML/BySection/Chapter_44A/GS_44A-12.html]GS_44A-12[/url]

and

[url=http://www.ncleg.net/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/HTML/BySection/Chapter_44A/GS_44A-13.html]GS_44A-13[/url]

[Flooringstore]

Thanks for the responses and link. That is good info to have on hand. I know that the installation was good when I left the house after the install date. My problem is that she is not letting me into the house to see what the problem is now and she is having it replaced with another type of carpet from another store before anyone can inspect it. The carpet manufacture is will to send an inspector to look at job and replace carpet for her if something is wrong with it. I honestly think that she doesn't like the carpet that she picked and with contract signed has found a way not to pay builder who in turn is not paying me.

I am ready to go to court with customer, but am more hesitant to go against builder. I would like to keep his business even though he threw me under the bus with this contract.

A lien will be taken out on the property today either way.

Keep the feed back coming, I could use all the advice out there.

Thanks again

[Hoe1979]

It sounds to me that you will have to go after the builder since you where his sub-contractor. Your agreement was with him to install the carpet.