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underbudgekting/overcharging

Hello, my contractor went over allowances and estimates; for example, he put in 5K for counters, and is charging me 10K; estimated electrical to 1.6K, and is charging 8K. Put allowances for shower doors at 2.8K, and charging 4.2 K (on stuff he ordered). Also, he claims a lot of small adjustment made during the work added to the expenses, but did not provide me with a change in order. He did provide change in order in writing for certain items (eg upgrading to metal beam) and I have no problem with that, because I approved them. But his final bill came at 30K over the contract, and only about 12K were approved by me. What is my recourse here? He also took 6 mo for a 2 mo project, 2 mo based on his estimate and on similar projects in the neighborhood...

1 reply

Feb 25, 2021

The answers to your questions depend upon what your written contract says. For example, you say that the work was more than estimated. But an estimate is just that - an estimate. It is not a fixed price to which the parties agreed. So the fact that the work cost more than the estimate may not mean much. That is particularly true if you approved all of the work that was done. Another example is that you say there were no change orders. Whether that is relevant depends in large part upon how change orders are treated in the contract. If there is no written contract, the fact that you approved of the work is likely all that is required. A written change order would not be. Text messages and emails would also suffice. So the answer to your questions depend in large part on the contract terms. If you do NOT have a written contract, you should negotiate a settlement because the amount of money at stake ($18,000 difference) is probably not worth the expense of hiring a lawyer, and if your primary argument is that the cost was more than the $12,000 estimate, it is highly likely that the result will be somewhere north of $12,000, which makes fighting over it worth even less.

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