Breech of contract

Hi, We signed a contract with a contractor September 2020. We couldn’t get a loan with the bank because there was a huge price difference between the cost to build and the appraisal. The bank pretty much asked for a huge amount down. We communicated all this with the contractor and asked for some time so we could say the money. May 2021 we wanted to resume the process again and the contractor increased his price by 100k. We decided we cannot proceed as we don’t have the funds for this new price and we would have to come up with the money ourselves. We decided to breech the constant move on. He said in order to get out of the contract he would charge $11900 for his pre construction time he spent. We found that amount to be ridiculous as we haven’t done anything we only did paper work. All he did was Submit the permits to the city and bus out the project to subs. We both got attorneys to negotiate the price but he refused to bring the price down to something reasonable. His contract says nothing about how much it would cost if we broke the contract pre construction. It only says we have 3 days to cancel. That’s all. He has proceed to file a case at the small claims court. Do you think he would be able to get all that if he wins? He’s contract is very vague. Thanks