We are currently building a multifamily building in Southern California that is 2 stories of wood frame over concrete foundation and podium. We have engaged with a General Contractor to subcontract the frame and concrete work at the project. For the sake of clarity lets call this GC as GC 1. GC 1 has engaged with another company to perform the concrete and frame work, later on we found out that the company that GC 1 has engaged with also holds a General B license, which makes the company a general contractor. So lets call this company GC 2. So GC 1 has contracted GC 2 to perform the work and GC 2 has used its employees in its payroll to perform the work. GC 2 does not hold a C5 or C8 license. Does this mean that the company GC1 hired as a subcontractor (which is GC 2), does not have the proper licensing since they executed the job as a subcontract? The crew that GC 2 would pour concrete and then the same crew would switch their tools and work as framers. The quality of the work has caused problems such as problems with drywall not being level, windows not being level, water leak through concrete, additional stucco work to cover the concrete that was not properly formed are just a couple that comes to my mind. What is the best way to recoup some of the damages that were caused by GC 2 due to performing a trade without C5 or C8 license? And what kind of action can we take against the GC1 which has subcontracted this work to GC 2 knowing that the only license they have was a General B License?...Read More
I am a subcontractor, we have completed our scope of work per the contract signed. The GC held 10% as retention. I need to bill the retention, I have $23,000 in extra work that hasn't been billed because the GC has to issue a written change order first. The extra work has been approved by the GC however, they need approval from the owner prior to issuing the change orders. They have submitted all the paperwork to the owner and they are waiting for approval..it has been 4 months since the extra work was completed....Read More
Bay Area GC kicked off public works job and needs to get paid (retention, unpaid scope work completed, and change orders). Is there an alternative to hiring an attorney to guide/submit claim? Or do we need an attorney for this process? Public works agency keeps telling us to 'file a govt claim'. What are our recovery options short of litigation? Money is tight. No sub bond claims made yet. No claims to surety made yet. Any guidance appreciated....Read More
We are dealing with a GC proposed lumpsum contract on single family home remodel and expansion. Of course as homeowners we have wish list, our GC keeps executing our Wishlist without confirming the cost and later send huge add services. Our Contract clearly says they cannot enforce change orders on us unless approved in writing. We are being threaten for litigation and liens.
Additional they did math error on calculating lumpsum amount and we are not being asked to pay more. We never received line item breakdown for each task, rather a milestone payment plan. We are having hard time defining what we owe them, we have requested a finite amount multiple times. All of these issue surfaced only towards the end of the project, ...Read More
I am property owner where my contractor walked away from the job introducing an un-approved change order. He has already collected after collecting 85% of final payment from 7 milestones but only completing 75-85% of each milestone. At the final he introduced a change order for the work done in 4/5th milestone and 2.5 months before whose payment got denied by us. When we told him to complete the paid milestone job first he left the work (threaten many times before to quit the project too). We paid 7 milestones 100% payment in good faith but we don't cheated and now we don't know how to proceed. If we sue him, we will end up spending more than he owes us. Small claim court is to less amount. Our project is stopped from last one month and we don't know what is best way....Read More
I am a property owner where my contractor walked away from the job introducing an un-approved change order. He has already collected 85% of total payment from 7out of 8 milestones but only completed 75-85% of each milestone work. At the final stage he introduced a change order for the work done in 4/5th milestone and 2.5 months before. That change order was never known to us and never approved so its payment got denied by us. When we told him to complete the paid milestone job immediately he left the work (He threatened many times before to quit the project too ---red flag but we were stuck with a contract). We paid 7 milestones 100% payment in good faith but we got cheated in return and now we don't know how to proceed. If we sue him, we will end up spending more than he owes us. Small claim court is too small an amount to cover. Our project has stopped for the last one month and we don't know what is the best way. ...Read More
I contracted to upgrade the electrical panel on my home in July. The preliminary proposal included the installation of an EV charger at an additional cost of $600. I failed to notice when the contract was e-signed that the EV charger install was not included. No work and no communication occurred until December 12. At that time I realized my oversight and began discussion on changing the contract to add the installation of a dedicated outlet in the garage for a Level 2 EV charger. After multiple emails with the contractor, I received an email that the change order would be written up. The next day I received an email that after discussions with management they could not do the change order, but would leave a stub-out for future work. Is that acceptable under CA law and standard practice in the industry? ...Read More
I am a subcontractor on this project even though I am a general contractor, I am only providing all the light gauge metal studs and all phases of the drywall including Exterior (Dens-glass) and interior on this particular project, it's a new build from the ground up, 5 stories 109 guest rooms. I was awarded the work as the GC knew I was from out of town, we allotted 6 months for this project from the time we started to the finish of our phases, based on the G.C.'S schedule and timetable for us. This project had a lot of issues with the schedule to begin with due to COVID this was put on hold for about a year or more before it came back online and had a lot of issues out of the gate, but we were in constant communication with the project manager and job superintendent. And based our schedule, on the job schedule from the project manager (through building connected) and that communication, and due to being from out of town, it took us many months to find a place to stay for four people that would all be working on the project, for an extended amount of time again allotting 6 months for the project, so finding a place to stay for the duration of the project had to be done months before our part of the project started. We were scheduled to be on and start the project on May 23rd 2022 so we made sure that we were here and moved into the place we rented a week prior to that so we would be ready to start on the 23rd. We were scheduled to have 10 working days to do the exterior Dens glass, but due to issues on the project, and none that were our fault, the constant delays prevented that from happening, and stretched that out to about 5 plus months before we could complete that, and even now at this point, 6 months in (today is 11/25/22) we are still waiting for them to address some issues so we can actually complete the exterior. And now they want to change some things on the exterior. Anyway all that we have done on the interior is about 200 sheets of prelim work. So, I need to know if I can and how I can bill for the "extended general conditions" on this project. meaning, can I bill them for the cost of our stay these last six months? I have six months of rent on the house we rented as well as an Office/storage container on site. I also have a lot of flights/travel (driving back and forth) between Sacramento where we are based and live and this project in LA. I am already trying to get them to approve my change orders on the material price increase since we first bid this 2 years ago, which they said wouldn't be an issue, but now it seems to be an issue, due to them changing management in the middle of this project. We still have about 5-6 months to go on this project which will double our projected timetable/ cost that was again based on "their" the General contractor/owners job schedule, and should not have to pay that out of our pocket. Can I bill for and how do I fight to make sure that they cover these cost due to their delays? Thank you....Read More
We are a sub-sub contractor providing services to a sub on a big project. Our customer has give us multiple purchase orders/change orders to charge our services to so they are able to allocate funds on their end. Is there a need for us to send a separate Preliminary notice for each phase or PO if it is with the same customer on the same job?...Read More
I'm a Concrete Contractor, for this project we have not gotten payed, The owner says no Change Orders were signed but she agreed to them. Her checks bounced for non sufficient funds and she won't answer emails, we sent notices via certified mail and notices have been left for the documents but nobody has claimed them and returned to sender. Using levelset, we learned the property is owned by a different person and we have notified them as well and have not gotten any response from the home owner.
the person who signed the contract wants to countersue because she doesn't want to pay the extra fees or the change orders she made and agreed to ...Read More
We are a subcontractor working on a Community College project. We did not send a 20-Day Preliminary notice on this project, however, we do complete Conditional and Unconditional waivers for our client. We are not receiving payment on an executed change order and are wondering if we are able to file a mechanics lien on this project? ...Read More
Do companies selling metal buildings, located out of state, for contractors in California qualify as falling under the HIS registration requirements. I am dealing with an out of state sales company selling metal buildings for in state contractors. Got a quote for a building, agreed on price and requested contract to execute. Contract provided had one item spec'd wrong and not compliant with quote. Requested revised contract. Received revised contract but had added bracing items in addition to original quote (+$1,446). HIS said it was a new company policy he was not aware of when he did our quote. Then we are told the state of California requires it which tells me it should have been included in the original quote. Then we are told the contractor requires the additional bracing. We had to sign the contract because we are against the wall with our insurance company (storm damage) but I still question the addition. The contract states they can increase the cost without notifying us. Market forces and material availability did not increase the cost. A HIS error increased the cost. We have signed the contract and paid the deposit. We have not yet received a fully executed contract with their signature. John Damon P.E....Read More
We were demanded by our GC to do change order work before getting signed or they will fire us and hire a new subcontractor, so in good faith, we did the work. Now the project is ending and we have been told by our GC that they are not approved. (We have emails to back up these statements). I'm not sure the correct amount to type in the "Contract Amount" on the "Additional Job Information" page. Do I include the original contract amount, total of signed change orders and the total of unsigned change orders? - Thank you....Read More
I am in CA and signed a swimming pool remodel contract a month ago. Work is not set to start until mid-April. In the contract there is a line item to reduce the depth of the deep end of the pool to a 5' depth. After talking to many people, I have been told that will significantly reduce the value of the pool, and also pose an unsafe condition as it is not deep enough then to dive in to. I have asked the contractor for a deductive change order to eliminate that part of the work ($5800 on a $30,000 contract). I am also adding a change order to upgrade tile for an additional $2500., so net deduction is only about $3,300 or 10% of the contract amount.
There is nothing on the contract regarding change orders at all.
Could I legally be locked in to the original contract?
I have not paid any down payment, work is not set to start for another 3-4 weeks, and the proposal was done at my home in front of me, so no great amount of time was spent estimating the line item for the fill in the deep end cost.
Thank you for any help you can provide....Read More
I am a subcontractor on a project that was supposed to take 4 months. It has been 8, goping on 9 months. During this time, materials have greatly increased in price. When I speak to the General Contractor, he tells me there will be no compensation. The main reason for my hold ups is because the owner never submitted the bioswell plan to SMUD for SMUD to include in the SMUD Comittment drawings. The bioswell had already been installed and the owner did not want to pay to remove it to install the SMUD conduits. So this portion of the project sat for 3-4 months. Once they dug the bioswell out to install the SMUD conduits, the conduit was $10,000 more than the original bid price....Read More