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Contractor did a terrible paint job----- I dont want to pay the full amount due.

Anonymous Contractor

A GC my wife hired to paint a few rooms did a terrible job. I had him come back to do touch-ups as paint on the wall he worked on ended up on the ceiling as well. The ceiling was not part of the paint job. The contractor came back and said he was not going to correct his work. We have photos. Its obviously a terrible job. The balance on the job is $1,855 and on principle, I do not want to pay this amount but I also don't want to deal with a lien headache. I would prefer to get a quote from another painter to correct, as minor as 1 wall may be, and subtract this from the 1st clowns payment. What recourse do I have, if any?

1 reply

Sep 15, 2020

It is a pretty typical question when it comes to inquiring whether a lien can be filed by a party on a project before that party actually finished all of the work they were contracted to perform. The simple response is that if the property is improved and the contractor isn't paid for that improvement, there is a mechanics lien right. In your case however, you are arguing that the work was done incorrectly. If you were not to pay the contractor the remaining balance in which he is owed and he were to file a mechanics lien against you in an attempt to recover the funds owed to him, proving his workmanship was below par will require expensive and extended litigation. These types of issues often require a full-blown trial. In addition, if and when a mechanics lien is filed, it ties ups the property and has consequences to the owner and prime contractor immediately with no trial or further legal action required. The only remedy for the property owner to fix a mechanics lien problem is to pay the lien claim or file an action challenging the lien. If an action is filed claiming the lien is improper because of workmanship issues, as the challenging party, you will have a very hard time prevailing. The reason is simple: courts typically do not entertain factual arguments that require full-blown trials in summary mechanic lien removal proceedings. Therefore, if there is a dispute over workmanship at the property, the judge presiding over a mechanics lien challenge will likely rule and should rule that the lien was properly filed and will stick around until the workmanship issues are decided by a judge after a full trial.

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