Our building contractor is AWOL

[pumpknmom]

What is the name of your state? Massachusetts

I hired a licensed contractor to do a small addition on my home. He is now three months behind schedule. A lot of this was weather-related, since a few months ago we had a lot of rainy days, and he was sick for a while so we let it slide. The work is 90 percent finished. The last day any work was done, a subcontractor came and assured me he would be completely finished "at the end of the week." Well, that was two weeks ago. I continued to call the contractor daily and left messages on his answering machine and got no response. When I called today, I found that one of his phone numbers was disconnected, and the other kept ringing but no answering machine picked up. I'm not sure what to do now. Does it seem likely I will get a letter from a lawyer soon telling me the contractor has declared bankruptcy?

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[shortbus]

Depends how much money you still owe the contractor ... !

 

[pumpknmom]

Re : Our building contractor is AWOL

I probably should've mentioned that I still owed him about $5,000 which is a little less than one quarter of the total price. I think he would be taking a loss on the project at this point if he didn't finish and collect the balance owed from me.

I had heard through the grapevine about a month ago that he was having financial problems. (He's a business associate of a relative of a friend.) I was just wondering, does anyone know if this is a common way to go about bankruptcy for building contractors? Stop all work, cut off all communication, and let your lawyer handle it? I'm assuming that's what's happening, because I can't imagine what else could be going on.

Any input/advice would be appreciated. Thanks!