Trouble on the farm with contractor

[40Kchicks]

Actually the stress level has gone way down. I have been building for seven months now. I always worked over 10 hours a day with most the days being 12-15 hours. During that time I had two days off. Now the chickens are in the barns. I have a couple great employees (down from a stressful max of 25) helping with daily chores and maintenance. For the first time in six years my wife and I have been able to leave the farm together and not worry about some catastrophe happening while we are gone. We still need to be home at night because our helpers don’t live real close. We were hoping to start building a new house and then one of our employees would move into our current house but we needed a break so we will start that next year.

We contacted a lawyer last week and he said that we could put down a retainer to get him working on it or we could go to the contractor’s board and file a claim with them. I did contact the contractor’s board and discussed the issue with them. Once I make a claim they will have their lawyers review the claim by contacting both parties and getting the whole story. Then they will try and mediate the problem or recommend what legal action should be taken. All this information and help is free so I think we should go down this road first. Actually I'm going to perm out my construction loan this week then go sit down with the owner and see if we can come to terms. I don’t think that will work so we will probably be filing a claim with the contractor’s board in a couple weeks. I don’t know what will happen then so stay tuned. One thing I did get from the conversation with the contractor’s board is that a contractor’s agreement is binding whether it is verbal or written. I do have witnesses to my conversation with the owner when he told me that he didn’t think the job could be done for 60K, it might be closer to 80K by the time they were done.

Eric

 

[JimR]

Good for you 40chicks. Stick to your story and hopefuly all will work out in your benefit in the end. It is a good thing you had witnesses. Too bad they didn't hear the conversation where he said he could do the job for $60K. I can't stand it when people give their word and try to stick it to you later on.

 

[CurlyDave]

I agree.

This is sounding a lot better.

Ask your lawyer about getting the witnesses to commit their memory of the conversation to writing now. These things have a way of changing over time and it is worth a little money now to get that nailed down...

 

[hazmat]

You need a building permit to re-shingle your house? Oh my God, that really stinks. Your inspector needs Building Course 101 LOL's.

I've got bad news for you Jim - Technically, so do you

780 CMR 110.0 APPLICATION FOR
PERMIT
110.1 Permit application: It shall be unlawful to
construct, reconstruct, alter, repair, remove or
demolish a building or structure; or to change the
use or occupancy of a building or structure; or to
install or alter any equipment for which provision is
made or the installation of which is regulated by
780 CMR without first filing a written application
with the building official and obtaining the required
permit therefor.

 

[JimR]

I've got bad news for you Jim - Technically, so do you

780 CMR 110.0 APPLICATION FOR
PERMIT
110.1 Permit application: It shall be unlawful to
construct, reconstruct, alter, repair, remove or
demolish a building or structure; or to change the
use or occupancy of a building or structure; or to
install or alter any equipment for which provision is
made or the installation of which is regulated by
780 CMR without first filing a written application
with the building official and obtaining the required
permit therefor.

Hhhhmmm, that is very interesting. I asked that question and was told only if I was hiring someone to do the work.

 

[hazmat]

Hhhhmmm, that is very interesting. I asked that question and was told only if I was hiring someone to do the work.

You gotta love the consistancey . I'm making my walk up third floor into a media room right now. Building inspector (per code) required that I add 3 columns in the basement, upgrade the bearing wall on the first floor & get an engineer to sign off on the attic floor joists as when they built the house 12 years ago, they didn't do it to code.

When he came out to inspect my footing holes in the basement, he wondered out loud if the existing 2 columns had footers (new hole probably should have uncovered evidence) I said - w/o digging it up, how can I tell? He says - you'll be fine you're adding three more.

Electrical inspector came out for the rough in and was upset that I hadn't pre-wired the "pigtails" in the boxes (he used some other term I'm not familiar with). Didn't even look at the subpanel I added

 

[JimR]

If your floor buckles because there is no footing underneath you will know. I added more columns in my basement when the second floor was added on to my house. They were not required by ther building inspector or engineer that looked at the house beforehand. I added then for my own personal feeling of safety and to make leveling off the first floor easier. It does seem that many towns have their own rules. One of my brother's tells me his town is all screwed up when it comes to building additions and such. All kinds of stupid requirements are needed that have nothing to do with what is being done. No specifics, as I didn't care too much to hear about it.

 

[rox]

40chicks,
I'm glad your stress level is going down. I hope that you will be able to reach an outcome that is acceptable to you.
I guess I am amazed that having people work on your project for months that you never counted the heads and talley up what the labor was at for any point in time.

We have jsut a very small olive farm but at harvest time I know by hour what it is costing me and you knew as well. You were aware of the cost for Journeymen and Apprentices. You ahd agreed eye to eye and in a contract to pay by tme and materials. Whne the controctor first told you that it was going over his estimate, it seems to me that I would have followed up on a weekly basis. i would have been counting heads and doing the math daily after that (and actually probably before that). I seems to me that you were not engaged on the this aspect of the project. The fact that you didn't ask for any details or reports when told that the job was running over to me is a form of acceptance right at that point. I mean I would have known the names of the guys working on the job and I sure as heck would have asked them if they were Journeymen or Apprentices becasue I would be keeping a running total in my head per day based on who showed up to work and knowing their positions and hourly rate.

You have said that you believe the material charges are correct and that the labor charges are correct, and the contractor told you it was going over so I don't see what is to be negotiated, except perhaps for a payment plan. You never told him to stop working when he told you it was going over budget so I'm probably the only person here who thinks that if he can document his charges for materials and proove his laborers hours, that you do owe him the full amount. I don't even thinking taking him to mediation is fair. He did what he was supposed to do for the agreed upon rate. You did nothing until you got the final bill.

Also you should disclose this with your banker because when you take that final loan no doubt in the paperwork you have declared what your debts are, probably when you applied for the loan. Somewhere in that language it says that if anything materialy changes between application and closing you must notify the bank. Whether you agree with it or not until you get the contractors agreement you owe the debt as he has a signed contract, so this should be written into the bank documents. make sure your banker writes it down as part of your loan file. If you would have a financial problem, ad you never know in life you could get a bad health problem things liekt hat could happen, if you did not disclose this debt they could sue you for lying on your bank application. I forget the name, I think it's fraud if you do not disclose it. The thing is if that contractor puts a lien on your property that lien takes precedence before the bank loan. The bank doesn't want that, they want to be the first lienholder so when you sign your final loan papers make sure it is written down and added as a debt and dated. That way you are clear with the bank. if you don't tell them well actually you are committing fraud. I don't think that is what you want to do.

I hope I am able to write this in a non confrontational way and that you won't take it as a personal attack. I simply wanted to share with you a different opinion than everybody else here.

 

[EddieWalker]

ROX IS BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[gemini5362]

Rox while I know that you are trying to be helpful you are doing one of the things several people have talked about on here. You are giving legal advice without the knowledge of the states laws. Different states have different laws. In Arkansas where I live the contractor lien would not take precedence over the banks lien. In oklahoma which is a 20 min drive from me it would have. That is why myself and several others advised him to talk with an attorney so that he would have someone that has proven they have a knowledge of his states laws to advise him. In an earlier post 40k chicks said that he had consulted an attorney who advised him to seek out the help of the contractor board. This was very good advice. The contractor board will have people who can go over the materials list and the amount of time charged and see if it is out of line with the job performed. A contractor who has the resources to do a job of this size should have been able to give a fairly good estimate of what the job entailed. While I dont think anyone would expect him to tell him within the penny what it was going to cost on an estimate. Evidently the first estimate was 60,000 dollars or less. The final bill was 137,000 dollars this is a very very big difference unless there was considerable changes made to the original plan of work. Since that has not been mentioned I believe that the contractor board should be looking into this to see why the final bill was over 2 times the original estimate. If the contractor is giving false estimates in order to get work then he is commiting
unscrupulous buisness practices. In arkansas as a realtor If I was doing the same thing I could be fined and my license permanently revoked for the same type of actions. This is definetly something that should be looked into by the licensing agency that listed this contractor his contractors license in that state.