I'm a real estate agent in WA state. I recently had a listing working with an investor "flipper" that lived in San Diego. When the appraiser came back with , 'subject to' conditions, the seller was not going to come up and do the repairs and I kicked my dedication and knowledge of underwriters and guidelines and assured him the only way to close is to meet the requirements. After scraping and repainting a section and sending it to the appraiser for approval, my client put money into my bank for supplies and laborers for $300. The day I picked up the paint I talked to my seller telling him I would need him to deposit additional funds for the supplies, paint was $200 alone, I cleared with him how long it should take and how much to pay the workers, my workers quit within a half hour, the seller never put another dime in and had me giving out the gutter guy $300/$550 and dump run guy $160, so I personally repainted, scraped, stained, vacuumed paint chips out of the mud in the snow even..... everything appraiser asked for which included scraping and repainting the entire house, demolition of a part of the old garage structure, staining and painting all the gates, fencing, and decks, removal and disposal of all paint chips, replacing and repainting a shingle, installation of heaters in bedrooms, carving out access to the attic on top of the roof gable, caulking entire exterior and filling all exterior cracks, installation of gutters, outlet covers, repainted the trim and the garage. When I was purely exhausted, I remember telling him, I don't want to hear a word about my invoice when you see it. He signs his docs and complained that he was overcharged the buyer credit, and I was supposed to have 2.5% not 3... I showed him the PSA where I had taken off .5% at the purchase and he said I could put it on the resale, it is clearly in our listing agreement. Five days after he signed we closed, I went to title to pick up the escrow check for my invoice and the title company informs me that he denied my invoice and wired him his money. I rang and rang up my client, who I currently have another listing with, he won't discuss it. I dialed for dollars that night trying my best to find a buyer for his other listing, he likely will try to get me off of it asap and so I didn't want to lose that commission too. I got an offer within two hours and he didn't take it or address, deny, or dispute the invoice at all. But told one of our mutual friends "Can you believe that agent, trying to slip the $4k bill in there...?" This guy is a total narcissist and lying through his teeth. He text me "get it done, I want to keep this buyer, Im not paying another payment" and when the work was signed off on by the appraiser, he text "You're fucking Amazing" Now how can I recover the money? I was told because I'm not a licensed contractor I can't put a mechanics lien on him, but now I read that if you are the "laborer" that isn't paid, you can????