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How do I collect?

I took a job after send a quote out on a full remodel. Since tenant wasn’t going to be out for a few months just the outside work could be done. When work wasn’t up to the customers approval and code they asked me to do the repairs needed to fix these issues. I was booked up at this point and took me a week to get back out to the job. By this time they hired someone else to do the work they wanted done and are now refusing payment. Money owed is only outside work and they verbally agreed that they where ok with the quote for the entire remodel. $2k owed $8-10k for whole house.

1 reply

Jan 24, 2020

First, the terms of the contract will be important, if a written contract was signed. If the contract requires that you're given an opportunity to repair defects, or if it contains provisions regarding hiring a third party to complete the work, then those terms would be binding. And, an owner who's acted out of line with the contract may well be liable for breaching that agreement. Ultimately, though, it will be hard to collect full payment for work that was clearly defective and not up to code. If, despite the corrective work needed, payment is still owed to some degree, then payment might be collected. But even then - the amounts owed might be diminished by the cost it took to correct the flawed work. If payment is still owed, then pursuing recovery via tools like an invoice reminder, demand letter, or even a Notice of Intent to Lien could be a good step. And, if necessary, filing a lien claim or pursuing legal claims to get paid might be an option. However - negotiating a reduced rate for work that was done which was not defective might be a good option before making a payment dispute more adversarial. But the fact remains that if the work was defective and needed correcting, full payment for that work might not be realistic. That's particularly true where there's nothing in the contract for work that reserves the contractor's right to make repairs on their work before outside help is sought out. And in that case, the owner may be able to deduct the cost of repairing work from the price for originally performing it.

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