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What to do next?

I have a current scenario in which the Contractor provided me a time frame of 3-4 months to complete a job. It has been over a year and was still not completed. During that time frame (9 Months in) the ROC was contacted, opened a case and had an onsite review with ROC, and principals. During that time there was an agreement to give the contractor one last attempt to finish all work. This was in front of ROC member. The agreement was the contractor would complete work listed within 3 week period for a set final payment amount. The contractor failed to meet that time commitment and work had still not been completed into 3 months from the ROC meeting. At that point the Owner fired the contractor so she could engage with somebody else to finish the work. The owner provided the contractor more than enough time to complete the work. The owner wanted the ROC to render a finding in the case but he said he could not because the contractor was fired. Now the Contractor is attempting to collect fees from the Owner above and beyond was agreed to in the original contract. And the contractor is stating he is not responsible to come back and fix any of the items that he started. What should the home owner do at this point?

1 reply

Sep 11, 2022

It's very difficult to answer this question without copies of the written contracts and without knowing any the details of the basis for the contractor claiming it is owed money. So here are some general rules. If the contractor breached the agreement (and it certainly sounds like it did based on what you have said), then the owner is absolutely entitled to terminate the contractor and get a replacement contractor in there to finish the work. Once that is done, the contractor owes the owner the difference between the cost of the original contract and the amount the owner had to pay to finish the work. So let's say Contract 1 was for $10,000, but the owner had to pay $15,000 total under Contract 2 for the replacement contractor to finish. The contractor owes the difference ($5,000) to the owner because the owner is entitled to what he bargained for - the work done for a total of $10,000. Moreover, the contractor obviously cannot collect money for work it did not perform. So if the contract was for $10,000 and the contractor did half the work, then the contractor cannot collect the $5,000 for the other half of the work.

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