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Am I in Trouble?

I walked off the job with only 50% of the project complete. The contract reads 50% down at start (which I've received) and 50% down upon completion. 1. Do I have a right to file a mechanic's lien for the rest? I assume not since I haven't finished the project :O. 2. What recourse does my client have? The sent me an email saying I needed to contact them by tomorrow to try to resolve this and if they don't hear from me, they will assume I have abandoned the job. If I don't respond and decide to in fact just not finish the job, will I be in breach of the contract? If so, what's next? Thanks

2 replies

Aug 15, 2019

Based on your explanation and absent the benefit of actually reading the contract, you are likely in breach. If you're asking whether you can file a lien for work not done, the answer is a resounding "no". As well, you may be liable for substantial additional costs incurred by the project owner for holding up completion of the project and/or the additional burden of hiring your replacement.

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Aug 19, 2019

There are some important facts left out of the question here. Generally speaking, when you are contractually required to do work, and then don't do it, this creates a breach of contract. However, circumstances can exist whereby someone is excused from not performing the contract. These circumstances are usually things like the other party being in breach first. This happens a lot when a contractor is unpaid and then decides to "stop work" on the job. Some states -- like California -- even have a specific notice for this (the stop work notice -- see this awesome blog post, You can take your job and shove it!). If the other party is in breach (i.e. you have not been paid), then it's possible for you to both file a mechanics lien for the unpaid work, and to stop work. You'll want to pay close attention to the contract you have on the job though, as there are usually steps that contractors must take to actually stop work and terminate the contract.

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