Trouble on the farm with contractor

[EddieWalker]

Eddie,

One of those contractors I mentioned told me it would cost him over $10K in lawyers fees to try and get his $15K owed to him. Not to mention his time going back and forth with the courts and hearings. We have already spent over $3K in our suit against our neighbors and the papers haven't even been filed yet. I wish laywers up here worked for $100.00 an hour.

Hey Jim,

I know a few guys that get burned all the time. They do a job and then get stiffed. They feel it's not worth the hassle and expense of going to court to get paid for what they did. I disagree and will eagerly take somebody to court if they owe me for something I've done. I've found that those who allow this to happen, often have it happen to them all the time. I also find that a strongly worded letter is very effective most of the time to get slow paying clients to pay up.

If a client owed by $15,000, I wouldn't hesitate to spend $10,000 or more to get it. I'd also sue them for legal fee and my additional time. They can pay the $15,000 today or twice that when it's all said and done.

Once you win the case, I know there's no gurantee of payment anyway, but the money is owed and interest adds to that amount. I've come across quite a few real estate deals that have liens on them. After the property sells, the lien holders get paid. Wether it's the bank or a contractor or whoever. The owner of the property only gets what's left. These line amounts can be substantial over the years and most of the time the hiers selling the property don't even know about it.

It's money in the bank. I don't have a lien on anybodies property, but I'd consider it a good investment if I did. It wouldn't bother me at all to wait 20 or 30 years to collect on it becaue I know one day that it will happen. To me that's a thousand times better than just walking away from money owed to me for work I did with nothing to show for it, ever.

I wasn't trying to be accurate on lawyer fees. I know of many lawyers that charge $300 an hour and have heard of those who charge twice that much.

I also agree wtih you that the original bid of $60,000 isn't even close to the final bill. What I'm not clear on is wether that original bid was for the entire job or just for labor? Was the final bill for labor and materals? I'd think it would be very dificult to bid materials on a job like his, and since he mentioed that he was buying materials at a marked up price, that it was a seperate issue.

What was the original bid for? If labor, what was the final bill for labor only? How far off is it?

I feel sorry for 40kchicks, but I also don't think we've heard all the details of what happened. Not that he's intentionally misleading us, but maybe he didn't understand what goes on in construction or working with contractors and subs. It's real easy to make assumptions when you have no background in these things that lead to a situation like this.

Nobody has said how many hours were worked or what the materials bill was. It's premature to conclude that the contractor is a thief or crooked without knowing these things.


Eddie

 

[JimR]

Mike,

Your absolutely right that Eric signed an agreement for time and labor. He did so with the full knowledge that this job was quoted in advance at $60K, not $137K. I wonder if you Mike or anyone else on this forum would pay this electrician $137K for this job if it were yours all knowing well in advance that you had been quoted a price up front for $60K. I know I couldn't honestly pay the man. The problem with this electrician is that he is scamming people by using the old low bid routine. I wonder what kind of agreement he made with the neighbor to wire his barns?

Eric, How come the electrician didn't put the $60K figure into the contract?

I had a guy build my 3 car two story garage back in 1992. He was also supposed to build my second floor addition on my ranch house. Two weeks into the garage job I realized that he didn't care about the contract that I wrote up for my garage. He was going to build it his way. By week four I threathened to tear the whole building down and take him to court. I did it right in front of his workers so that I would have witnesses. The following day he installed the columns to support the overhead I-Beams that he felt weren't needed on the first floor. He then slowed down the progress of the building and over-ran his projected contract finish time by four weeks. I gave him two extra weeks on top of his original estimate to get the job done. When the garage was finished, I fired him. We had a signed contract for the house work also. The house contract had a stipulation in it that said he had to finish the garage in a timely fashion according to the dates given. I took over the general contracting job on my second floor addition. All the lumber was oreder and sitting at a lumber yard. I went there and explained to the manager that I fired the builder and would like to buy the ordered items. He set me up with an account and that was that. I had no contracting experience. I went out and hired a framing crew to do the work and signed a set price on that job. I bought all the materials needed. I did all the wiring myself except for the tie in at the house from the pole. I hired a plumber at a set price with a contract. The same thing was done for the plastering and insulation work. I learned a lot from that job and how to deal with people and contracts. I had two to three prices on every step of the project and gave the job to who I felt most comfortable with and who I could trust the most to get the job done in a timely manner. I can honestly say that I had no problems with the house project whatsoever.

Eric, I wish you all the luck in the world getting this straightened out. You may want to go to your local court house and request a meeting with a judge. I know this can be done up here and should be able to be done where you are located. Explain the whole situation to the judge and ask for his opinion or direction as to what you can do to fight this. It is free.


IMHO, I would not pay anymore than what you were quoted until you seek some advice either from a judge or a lawyer. If the electrician calls, I would inform him that you are seeking legal council in the matter. Do not explain anything to him until you find out what rights you have. You do have rights regardless of the written agreement. You were quoted a price up front. Your electrician could not meet that price and he should have been honest with you. Instead, he took advantage of you and is going to take you for a ride financially. One thing to remember when having work done. Always get everything in writing. That includes if you are paying the guy under the table too. If you don't, you won't have a leg to stand on.

 

[gemini5362]

JimR I am sure you feel your advice is sound. I really hope that 40kchicks does not listen to it. He is looking at some very big problems. Most of the people I have met do not walk away from 137,000 dollars. Walking away from 15,000 might be a smart move depending on what is involved in collecting. I dont know of any collection process that would make it worth your while to walk away from 137,000. If the electrician goes to court he has a good chance of winning. He has added value to the property and can prove it. He can put a lien against the property and he can take steps to collect his money in other ways. I am assuming that 40kchicks intends to sell chickens for a profit. That money is attachable. There are several ways to get the money that the electrician is owed. I am not an attorney personally but I can almost predict what the attorney for the electrician is going to say. " Your honor the amount my client mentioned at the start of the project was a rough estimate. I am sure that he is going to say that 40kchicks made changes to the original plan, material prices went up. Because of the complexity of the job he had to use more jorneyman electricians than he originally thought etc etc etc. Your advice could cost him a lot of money and possibly his farm.

Eddie Walker I can tell you from personal experience that lawyers constantly take cases about areas they have limited knowledge about. My wife has done that several times. She will have a good client that she will reccoment that they go to someone with more knowledge the client will insist that he wanted her to handle it. All the time spent learning about the area was not billed to the client. Most lawyers that I know only bill the client for legal services that they provide. It is very common for an attorney to spend 70 or 80 hours working to be able to bill 40. As I have said on several occasions if 40kchicks would have spent 1000.00 or less on a lawyer when he started this project he probably would not have the problems we are discussing now.

I suspect that if we knew the whole situation that there was some reason for the bill being larger than the original amount. From what we have been told that increase seems to be unfounded. If there is circumstances that the bill has been inflated then possibly a good attorney could help 40kchicks negotiate an amount that he could pay or possibly negotiate for him to make payments. If there is fraudulent activity on the part of the electrician an attorney will be the person that 40kchicks uses to file a suit of if suit has been filed a countersuit, But he has been presented with a bill by someone that did a considerable amount of work on his property. That person is owed payment and will probably steps to collect. 40Kchicks cannot hope this goes away, he needs to take steps neccessary to deal with it. Since no one here has admitted to having a JD or being licensed to practice law we are nice people to vent to but the reality is that anything more than that is not in 40kchicks best interest. He needs to talk to an attorney the sooner the better.

JimR i do not know about your part of the country but my experience has been that you never ever know what a judge is going to say or do. They have a lot of leeway in who they believe or who they feel is right.

 

[gemini5362]

Eric, I wish you all the luck in the world getting this straightened out. You may want to go to your local court house and request a meeting with a judge. I know this can be done up here and should be able to be done where you are located. Explain the whole situation to the judge and ask for his opinion or direction as to what you can do to fight this. It is free.


JimR I do not have a clue how they do things where you live. What you are suggesting in this statement is very unheard of in my local. First of all you probably would not get a judge to talk to you about this. This would be an immediate grounds to have the judge recused if this does come to a lawsuit. Most judges would not allow themselves to be put into this situation. Your experience that you related with your house sounds like you were very fortunate. I am glad that you were able to fire your contractor without him taking steps to collect extra from you. I am also glad that the local lumber dealer elected to allow you to take over the material that someone else had ordered. Obviously he did not feel that doing so would jepordize his relationship with that contractor. You did all the wireing yourself. Is your insurance company aware of this. Often an insurance company will cancel your insurance if they find out that you have had substantial wireing done to your residence by a non licensed electrician. Not to mention do you have state electrical codes that you have to complay with.

 

[Doc_Bob]

Electrically hook up new poultry equipment and lighting. The rates were for $60 an hour for journeymen and 40-50 for apprentices depending on the level of their apprentices. I thought I had one journeyman on the job and 3 apprentices but actually two of the guys were journeyman level."

I read this and had a devilish thought. This fellow should have names for all the workers he paid and pay stubs. Taxes paid on the work, insurance on the workers, etc. Would he be able to stand the bright light of an audit during any discovery your Attorney might suggest? I am just thinking out loud. Falsifying paperwork is no laughing matter. Lying to you is one thing, lying to Uncle Sam is another.
Bob

 

[JimR]

JimR I am sure you feel your advice is sound. I really hope that 40kchicks does not listen to it. He is looking at some very big problems. Most of the people I have met do not walk away from 137,000 dollars. Walking away from 15,000 might be a smart move depending on what is involved in collecting. I dont know of any collection process that would make it worth your while to walk away from 137,000. If the electrician goes to court he has a good chance of winning. He has added value to the property and can prove it. He can put a lien against the property and he can take steps to collect his money in other ways. I am assuming that 40kchicks intends to sell chickens for a profit. That money is attachable. There are several ways to get the money that the electrician is owed. I am not an attorney personally but I can almost predict what the attorney for the electrician is going to say. " Your honor the amount my client mentioned at the start of the project was a rough estimate. I am sure that he is going to say that 40kchicks made changes to the original plan, material prices went up. Because of the complexity of the job he had to use more jorneyman electricians than he originally thought etc etc etc. Your advice could cost him a lot of money and possibly his farm.

Eddie Walker I can tell you from personal experience that lawyers constantly take cases about areas they have limited knowledge about. My wife has done that several times. She will have a good client that she will reccoment that they go to someone with more knowledge the client will insist that he wanted her to handle it. All the time spent learning about the area was not billed to the client. Most lawyers that I know only bill the client for legal services that they provide. It is very common for an attorney to spend 70 or 80 hours working to be able to bill 40. As I have said on several occasions if 40kchicks would have spent 1000.00 or less on a lawyer when he started this project he probably would not have the problems we are discussing now.

I suspect that if we knew the whole situation that there was some reason for the bill being larger than the original amount. From what we have been told that increase seems to be unfounded. If there is circumstances that the bill has been inflated then possibly a good attorney could help 40kchicks negotiate an amount that he could pay or possibly negotiate for him to make payments. If there is fraudulent activity on the part of the electrician an attorney will be the person that 40kchicks uses to file a suit of if suit has been filed a countersuit, But he has been presented with a bill by someone that did a considerable amount of work on his property. That person is owed payment and will probably steps to collect. 40Kchicks cannot hope this goes away, he needs to take steps neccessary to deal with it. Since no one here has admitted to having a JD or being licensed to practice law we are nice people to vent to but the reality is that anything more than that is not in 40kchicks best interest. He needs to talk to an attorney the sooner the better.

JimR i do not know about your part of the country but my experience has been that you never ever know what a judge is going to say or do. They have a lot of leeway in who they believe or who they feel is right.

I said that he should pay him the $60K quoted. I mentioned seeing a judge because I was told by the local police that I could talk to a judge about my neighbor dispute which is another total matter that I won't get into regarding illegal trespass and destruction of property.

 

[Dusty]

If the judge were to talk to him, then that judge would have to disqualify himself from the case if it were to come to his courthouse. Judges hear cases, lawyers advise clients on how to proceed and what there chances of winning are, or at least a honest attorney will. There are some that will take the case and give you false hope, knowing all too well that you will not prevail.
Dusty

 

[JimR]

Eric, I wish you all the luck in the world getting this straightened out. You may want to go to your local court house and request a meeting with a judge. I know this can be done up here and should be able to be done where you are located. Explain the whole situation to the judge and ask for his opinion or direction as to what you can do to fight this. It is free.


JimR I do not have a clue how they do things where you live. What you are suggesting in this statement is very unheard of in my local. First of all you probably would not get a judge to talk to you about this. This would be an immediate grounds to have the judge recused if this does come to a lawsuit. Most judges would not allow themselves to be put into this situation. Your experience that you related with your house sounds like you were very fortunate. I am glad that you were able to fire your contractor without him taking steps to collect extra from you. I am also glad that the local lumber dealer elected to allow you to take over the material that someone else had ordered. Obviously he did not feel that doing so would jepordize his relationship with that contractor. You did all the wireing yourself. Is your insurance company aware of this. Often an insurance company will cancel your insurance if they find out that you have had substantial wireing done to your residence by a non licensed electrician. Not to mention do you have state electrical codes that you have to complay with.

Yes, I did all of my own wiring. The wiring is all up to state code. It was inspected by a licensed electrician that charged me a whopping $25.00 an hour to walk through and check it all out. The only thing that he did was to hook up the main line to the 200 amp service that I installed. That cost me $275.00 for parts and his time. My contractor had no legal way to to collect anything extra from me for breaking the house contract with him. He couldn't make the first contract which in turn cancelled out the second contract. We wrote the contracts up, not him. I wasn't about to be put over by anyone on this deal as winter was coming and I did not want my house open during the winter months because he may have gotten other work or whatever excuses he may have had. He no longer is a contractor. Believe it or not, he's a Lawyer now. He handles real estate conveyances, real property issues/zoning, wills and bankruptcy and consumer & credit issues. This is all from his ad in this weeks local paper. His contacting business was pretty much over after he dealt with us. One of his good workers left him shortly afterwards. Within months his ads stopped appearing in the local paper.

 

[JimR]

If the judge were to talk to him, then that judge would have to disqualify himself from the case if it were to come to his courthouse. Judges hear cases, lawyers advise clients on how to proceed and what there chances of winning are, or at least a honest attorney will. There are some that will take the case and give you false hope, knowing all too well that you will not prevail.
Dusty

Around here we have a lot more than one judge per courthouse. Like I mentioned. We were advised by the police to contact a judge to see what we could do legally about our neighbor and to get his imput.

 

[dmccarty]

40KChicks,

You could go to the courthouse and see if the electrician has put liens on other properties. Also try to see if you can pull the permits he has used for other jobs. That would give you a list of contacts to see if this has been a problem on other projects. You could call them and see if they where happy with his work. You don't have to explain your situation just see what they have to say.

What *** I *** would do if you have not already done so, is to tell him you thought the job was for X dollars and that you are shocked that the price is now so much more. See what he says. I would expect him to give me a list of his workers time and material costs. After all it was T&M.

If you agreed to X dollars I would pay him that amount. Then go from there.

When we built the house I received an itemized list every month. I checked those numbers with our budget. Passed the bill on to the bank and paid the builder. He had a few overages that where minor dollar wise. I'm sure some would have shafted the builder but I thought they where honest mistakes. He sure did not pocket the money. I received the work and materials in the house. He just made a mistake or two. I think our house was over by 3-5% but most of that was changes WE made in the materials we used. No design changes caused the extra dollars.

Where is the bank in all of this? Did they give you the money and not watch over your shoulder? How long did the project last?

I have found the bank suprisingly, sometimes scary, helpful. We had a run in with our origional loan officer who was fired/quit. The people who finished up the loan as well others in the bank where very helpful.

Later,
Dan