How to fire my contractor?

[RFB]

Please be very careful.

I have lived in large metropolitan areas (multiple millions in population), and varying degrees of "small town". I currently live in a community so small that there is not one traffic light in the entire county, and it would take 3 counties combined to gather 15,000 folks. The county seat is pop 600.

Watch some reruns of "Green Acres". Mr. Haney was not a caricature; he was a character based upon reality. Whether the town is big, medium or small, you will find good and bad actors. If the townfolk get upset because you draw a line on bad actors, that's their problem, not yours. I wish you well.

 

[MarkV]

We want to retire and live there. It's a small community I'm sure we will run into him again in the future on something not construction related.

It is hard when you live so far away and don’t know the locals. I’ve been in the construction field most of my working life in urban areas. Moving to a small rural community has made me adjust my expectations on how construction projects are done in this setting. Working as a trade person in an urban area you respond to a client in a timely way because that is how you make your business work and there are a dozen other trade people waiting in line to take the job if you don’t. In this rural area there are often only 1 or 2 people with in 50 miles that do a reasonable job in the trade you need and they are not worried about losing the work. They are the only game in town and they know it. It has been my observation that this really affects the amount of communication they feel is required to run their business. Also seems to affect how concerned they are with your time schedule. My jaw dropped the first time I heard it would be two months before they could look at the job because it was hunting season and they don’t do plumbing during hunting season.

My only point is to tread lightly when dealing with the local trade people. They all know each other and may well be kin to each other. They all hate, at least here, anyone that has that fast pace “city attitude” about a job. That’s not to say you did but it is always easier to make it your fault rather than theirs. It isn’t right in my book yet if I want anything done I’ve had to adjust my expectations as I suspect you will too.

Good luck,
MarkV

 

[3RRL]

It is hard when you live so far away and don’t know the locals. I’ve been in the construction field most of my working life in urban areas. Moving to a small rural community has made me adjust my expectations on how construction projects are done in this setting. Working as a trade person in an urban area you respond to a client in a timely way because that is how you make your business work and there are a dozen other trade people waiting in line to take the job if you don’t. In this rural area there are often only 1 or 2 people with in 50 miles that do a reasonable job in the trade you need and they are not worried about losing the work. They are the only game in town and they know it. It has been my observation that this really affects the amount of communication they feel is required to run their business. Also seems to affect how concerned they are with your time schedule. My jaw dropped the first time I heard it would be two months before they could look at the job because it was hunting season and they don’t do plumbing during hunting season.

My only point is to tread lightly when dealing with the local trade people. They all know each other and may well be kin to each other. They all hate, at least here, anyone that has that fast pace “city attitude” about a job. That’s not to say you did but it is always easier to make it your fault rather than theirs. It isn’t right in my book yet if I want anything done I’ve had to adjust my expectations as I suspect you will too.

Good luck,
MarkV

AMEN!

 

[gemini5362]

Call the local building department and find out if he is a competent contractor that knows how to pour concrete. Call the concrete company and find out if he is a regular customer. If the answer to both questions is yes, then let him finish the job and you will be happy in the end. If you are 300 miles away, then you will need to start over again looking for someone else. OK.. there was a hick up, but don't let it ruin the meal. Get over it and get the work done.
Dusty

Dusty I can not believe you would tell him to go ahead and use this guy. The guy had a contract. He walked off in the middle of it and did not tell anyone when he would be coming back. He was not available for two weeks to ask when he would be back. He jacked the price up and lied about the reason why. What else is he going to lie about. How long is he going to say that the cement trucks had to wait then charge you money that he was not out. Find someone you can trust rather than someone who has shown that they have no problems with lieing to you to increase their profit.

 

[stumpfield]

Dusty I can not believe you would tell him to go ahead and use this guy. The guy had a contract. He walked off in the middle of it and did not tell anyone when he would be coming back. He was not available for two weeks to ask when he would be back. He jacked the price up and lied about the reason why. What else is he going to lie about. How long is he going to say that the cement trucks had to wait then charge you money that he was not out. Find someone you can trust rather than someone who has shown that they have no problems with lieing to you to increase their profit.

Thanks gemini5362,

No, I won't deal with someone like that period. Contractually, I'm covered. I'm not worry about things on the legal side. It's a clear and well written contract. I was looking for advice on the human side of things. Especially in rural areas and what's the best way to handle this situation...

He may be very competent in his field of work. But he clearly demonstrated his motive was not to do his job and get paid for a job well done. He wants to extract as much as he could.... Just like any other profession, there are 2 types of people. One charge for the work they do at a price they feel it's fair to them. They do their job, get paid and move on. The other will try to charge as much as they could or can get away with... It's like if you ask how much does it cost to do this? They want to how much money do you have? Even well known and suppose to be reputable companies are no exception.

 

[Dusty]

Dusty I can not believe you would tell him to go ahead and use this guy. The guy had a contract. He walked off in the middle of it and did not tell anyone when he would be coming back. He was not available for two weeks to ask when he would be back. He jacked the price up and lied about the reason why. What else is he going to lie about. How long is he going to say that the cement trucks had to wait then charge you money that he was not out. Find someone you can trust rather than someone who has shown that they have no problems with lieing to you to increase their profit.

I have spoken my piece and stand by it. You are free to disagree and I will respect your words, but that doesn't mean that I have to agree with you any more than you have to agree with me. The one thing that I know is that we only know one half of the story, and we have no idea what the cement plant told the contractor vs. what they told him. The contractor wants to finish the job now for the original amount, and given that it is a small rural area, if he doesn't finish the job, there might not be anyone else to do the job.
I got a local contractor friend a job this past spring breaking up (hammering) a large area of ledge that the owner wasn't able to get anyone to do for over 4 years. He wanted to erect a barn in that area. He was pleased with the work that the contractor did for him, and promised him other excavation work. When he was ready to do the other work, he never asked the contractor that did the hammering for a price, but instead hired another contractor to do the excavation work. I guess that he wanted to "spread the wealth". The contractor that did the hammering learned about this from the contractor that did the excavating. The two contractors are friends and talk to each other about jobs that they are doing or have done. Now, the owner wants another section of the property to be "hammered" to remove the ledge for another building. The fellow that does the hammering, said no way will he ever do any more work for him. That is what happens in small towns. Many times when one contractor speaks to another contractor, the owner gets a bad reputation and no one wants to do business with him. In this case that I mentioned, the owner has been turned down by all the area contractors since he didn't keep his word with the first one.
Dusty

 

[gemini5362]

Dusty I have read your posts on here often and I respect your opinion if you feel that way about it you obviously have your reasons. I also live near a small community. The nearest town to me has 76 people. More than likely where I live if a contractor treats people like that then fireing them would be something that is understood and accepted. In the case you are talking about people would talk if someone promised to hire you to do work but I would not imagine everyone around town not doing any work for you. I have a friend that is the Regional Manager of a huge pumping company. His favorite saying is Loyalty is only a box of Chocolate Donuts away.

 

[stumpfield]

Dusty,

Thanks for the post. This is the kind of information I want to take into consideration. It's different than dealing in the big city. In my case, I have to work with someone has good work ethics and trustworthy. I live 300+ miles away from the building site. I rely on what the contractor tells me what's done and what's not. I can't be there often enough to watch him work or inspect the progress. I rely on what he tells me so I can pay him on time. So far, it has worked very well with my grading/excavating guy and the well driller.
The construction boom in the area is making it very difficult for me to find a good GC or any good contractors. That was 8 months ago. Now, I'm getting calls from the same preferred contractors saying they are now available to take on new work. So, I think I'm ok now. Again, I appreciate all the advice posted here.

 

[schmism]

i only skimmed the other post so i might be repeating what somoene else already said.

the short answer is depends on what your contract that you signed says.

A good friend that is a developer in the area of my property (rual growing area)
is working on his first subdivision. choose unwisely for a general contractor and 7/8 the way through he had paid for almost 100% of the project yet the contractor had yet to finish the last major part (the paveing of the road).

He was under contract to have the road in by a certian date otherwise my friend was liable to refund money on deposits for people that had bought lots.

As the deadline approached, he kept upping the pressure to finish. Eventually (after talking to a laywer) he sent him a regersted mail saying he was given notice that if he did not commence work within the next week he would be in breach of contract, (ie hes fired) and in turn would sue to get the money back the money he had paied to have the work (that wasnt done).

Durring that week he lined up a contractor to finish before his deadline. After the week was over the new guy started and finished the project. They have sence filed suit to recover the $$ from the first guy.

Its sightly diffrent in your case, but thats my info on how to go about fireing the contractor. (its essentaly a breach of contract)

 

[rox]

Or you could try the French approach. You tell the trades people that you are having a completion or mid point in construction party on XX date and that they are invited to the party. If you really want to see good work done schedule a party, say a pig roast, or steaks on the grill, anything nice and substantial, and of course they should bring their wife or girlfriend so that they can show off their work at the party. It's like sales, people like to buy form people they like. Good sales people are generally nice people outside their sales employment.

Here is another tactic I used. I was trying to sell our house and the showing reports ere that the kitchen was to small. It really wasn't but because of the way an island was in the middle it looked smaller than it was. I won't go into allt he details here, to shoren up the story i'll make the main point. I hired a carpenter/contractor. He works by himelf and also uses 2 other guys on bigger jobs. When I asked him for a quote i could see him estiating the hours. i had a good feeling about the guy so I told him, i trusted him and he should jsut quote my an hourly rate, that way he did not ahve to put in any fudge factor in case there were unforseen issues. he quoted me $30 an hour. I jsut nodded my head. When we were done with the business end and were having coffee I told him that I didn't want to pay him $30 an hour. he looked rather surprised and disappointed. I said that I thought he was worth more than that and that I wanted to pay him $50 an hour, because i thought he had exactly the right skills and experience for the job. i only had two conditions. he had to start the job within a month and once started on my job he had to work on it full time until it was done. I didn't want him working a half a day on my job then run over and finish up a different job. I got a whole kitchen remodle done in 3 1/2 days, the carpentry work. He did a bit of drywalling, he built 2 cabinets. he didn't do the countertop or the plumbing but he did everything else. We had him over for dinner a few weeks later and he told me he was really shocked and proud when I told him that I thought he was worth more than he suggested. Beleive me I really got my money's worth.

So if you are building ins a small town, and you think the person has the skills and that is the person you want to do the job, offer to pay more than they quote because you think they are worth it, and you will get amazing results. Honestly i did think the carpenter/contractor was worth more than he was asking. He had pride in himself and pride in my job, and I got the whole thing done in 3 1/2 days. The starting date condition and the condition that they not work on any toehr jobs once they walk on your jobsite are important, but if you tell peopel that they are underselling themselves and you want to pay them more, that their skills are worth more, they will not come back and nickle and dime you and your job will be done probably better than agreed to on paper. The key of course is finding those skilled tradespeople who you do feel are craftsmen. Once you find who you want, if you pay them more than they ask, you will get it back in quality of the job, that top up you added to their quotation.

The people who comented about small towns added a lot of value to the topic. We have needed several skiled tradesmen on our farm here in France and all we do is go over to the neighbors and ask. In samll towns people know who the good skilled trades people are. We don't even get bids, and believe me everyone here thinks all Americans are rich nd they can make money of of us, but by working with our neighbors, who make the phone calls for us, we get really great work done at a fair price. I actually couldn't believe how cheap, ahmmm make that low cost, the plumber was who installed a new kitchen sink. The neighbr behind us called a good plumber for us and that is all it took. in small towns people do know who are the good guys and who ae the screw ups. Hopefully you can get some contacts from the cement company and "do over." At least you got some wood out of it, could have been worse.