schmism said:
you submit a receipt for materials that are either installed or sitting on the ground at my jobsite ill pay it.
Ill cut a check for half the labor @~ half way through
the rest wont hit your bank account till i have a signed lean release waver from you and the job is finished.
but even then, you can still have a contractor holding up a job espeically in the punch list phase.
additionally.... do not pay your contractors for the materials they buy. We have started the long slow process of building our own house, and were told by the bank that would be handling the money....
(take for instance the foundation guy) you pay the ready-mix company directly, and get a lean release waver from them. Labor is paid to the foundation contractor, and a second lean release waver from him.
(these days) all to often, the foundation guy would be finished, send a bill for $X (including his concreete cost) you cut the check, he never turns around and pays the ready-mix peeps, who after a month or 2 turn around and file a lean against the property.
the same is true for the lumber company that supplies the framing material, the roofing supplys for the roofer etc. most electricians and plumbers buy ther own supplys and arent "back charging" a supply house... but thats not always the case for the fixtures that you choose, (so pay for those yourself etc)
NOTE: this can get 2 and 3 people deep.... take for instance trusses.... if the framing contractor buys them from the lumber yard, who in turn orders them from a truss company.... We had a situation were a home builder had paid the lumber company for the material (and trusses) but the lumber comapny never paid the truss company, so the truss frabracator came after the contractor for money... (custom trusses, means they know what house/lot they go to = a lean on your property)
Schism,
I strongly endorse your comments! in fact I ws n the other side fo the desk filing liens agains construciton jobs, being a subcontractor and material provider. I would want to pay directly for all materials and not have them be billed to the contractor, I pay the contractor and then I 'assume" the contractor pays the subs and materials. Only IF it wre a big name builder, well known and around for 25+ years would I not want to pay materials myself.
Also you might want to add a clause that once he starts your job he is ther working on your job every day. What happens is, smaller guys start jobs, but to get their next job they take off work from your job to start the next one, they kind of kep a piplinegoing but all it does is delay your job. I had a kitchen remodle done and that was one ofmy conditions, once you start my job you owrk every day until it is finished. Only after it was finished did i pay.
however my contractor was ery pleased with our arrangement since I paid him y the hour, I told him i would be there and he did not need to bring in another person, if he needed soemthing that took 2 people I would do it.
I really liked paying by the hour. I was up front about it, every morning when he showed up i got out my clip board in front of him and said, "let's write up 8:30 as the starting time." Same thing when he quit for the day, I wroe down the time and he saw me do it.
When he quoted me his hourly rate I said he was worth more than that and I paid him more than he asked for, and he really was worth it. man did that make him happy, can you imagine acustomer saying, "Jim I think you are worth mroe than $40 and hour, I want to pay you $50 an hour but here are my conditions" Once you start my job you work on it every day until it is done... My job ther was not a lot of materials so that was not an issue.
you might consider just paying hourly if you can be around t se the start and stop times, and then pay him a bit mre than he is asking. #1 the guy has to be good, if he is good you will come out ahead by payg hourly and paying a bit mroe than his quote,
i am sure this is totally against the advice given here by others but it worked very very well for me. Take and eddie Walker or a Wrought Iron harv, tell those guys they ae worth more and jsut see if they don't actually perform even beter than their already great work. Also start a thread here on TBN adn post pletnty plenty of pics. ddie especially looks over all framing pics with a very sharp eye as do others. For me I like to buy the materialsand py by the hour. If ypu don't like the guy jsut send him away, he was only hired hourly and there is no issues with a contract that way.
