Hi, I filed a mechanical lien back in February, about 3 weeks ago a rep from the owner's project contact me and said that they already paid in full the project to the GC, the GC said the owner owes them money, the lienis for +11k the owner offer us to pay $5k in exchange for the removal of the lien, and they said to try to collect the rest from the GC, but we told them no. How can we proceed to collect our money? How long should be wait untill we receive our money? We know that the GC closed the company and he opened a new one, another subcontractor that worked on the same project found out the new company and contacted the GC, but the GC told him that he wants to be sued to go bankrupt and not have to pay us. If the Owner is saying the true and they already paid the GC it will be unfair for them to double pay for the project, but it is also unfair for us being a very small company not being paid, $11k might not be too much, but for us it is a lot, we still owe material money from this project and we struggle a lot because of this since October. Please let me know what can we do
Hello,
There's a lot to unpack here.
How do you proceed to collect your money? You sue the property owner (and hopefully you followed the subcontractor process and gave proper notice of intent to lien with the required funds trapping language), sue the GC, and sue the GC's new company under the Texas Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act (make sure you have that "I want to go bankrupt" thing in writing". Note: If you did not follow the correct subcontractor process, you did not trap funds and the property owner will get out fairly quickly.
How long should you wait? A lawsuit can take months. Usually anywhere between 9-18 for District Court stuff and since this concerns a lien, it will be in District Court because you cannot sue in Small Claims Court for things that concern liens.
You may not like it but there is a likelihood, and a strong one, that $5K is a good setup. I do everything on flat fees but even my fees are going to exceed $5K and while we may get a judgment, there's no guarantee that we will get paid on that judgment. I will say that we can write the judgment so he cannot bankrupt out of it. A lot will depend on how much time and effort you want to put in to recover $6K.
E. Aaron Cartwright III
214.799.0776
Aaron@EACLawyer.com