hi all-
I recently hired out a contractor to repoint my bricks and steam clean it. I thought I did my homework on this guy and on top of that, he came Highly recommended from a Excellent Roofer.
Well, it’s been a nightmare at best…….delayed jobs, cutting of my bricks when grinding the mortar, never returning my calls, and the nerve of not keeping appts and not calling to cancel – it’s a long story.
Here’s the bottom line. I have paid for 40 % of the work already. They should be done soon but here is my main concern….we live in a semi-detached house so keeping cool with the neighbors is a +
1) They ripped off the chimney strap the holds my neighbors antenna
2) While steam cleaning the bricks, they dropped some solution on the neighbors awning and a 1′ x 2.5′ spot of paint is missing on their aluminum awning.
I spoke to the neighbor and they told me Painting is not an option, and I would feel the same way. The contractor is insured so how should I best approach this. With my experiences in me leaving messages and him failing to keep appts or days of scheduled work without even calling me, I can’t trust this guy,
– Should I withhold payment until the neighbors stuff is corrected to their satisfaction
– Since he is insured, can I followup directly with his insurance company or it is really up to the contractor to do the legwork in filing a claim……
For all that’s been in the same boat…suggestions, ideas if you have. The antenna is either going to be replaced or they will have to remount it. That is a very simple issue.
However, what would be proper in this case with the awning. AFAIK, it’s about 5 years old and still in great shape….it’s only the paint that is the issue.
Replies
Have the contractor give your neighbor his insurance companies name and policy number. That is what an insurance company is there for. Do not try to intercede or negotiate between your neighbor and the contractor. No good can come of it. Leave it at that.
It will be as easy or as hard as the three sides, the neighbor, the contractor and the insurance company, make it. The contractor is responsible for any damages not you.
A contractor that bad should not be in business.
If he's a good guy, but got a bad sub or laborer,
he should make good immediately. Since he's not
doing that, I'd send a registered letter first.
Two options- 1) pay another contractor out of
his own pocket to finish the job and fix the damage.
2) You will file a claim with his insurance company
to have the job restored to its original condition
before he butchered it. In either case, you want
your 40% back. If you have a lawyer, this is the sort
of stuff they love to do.
The neighbor should directly contact the guy's insurance
company. If the insurance turns out to be fake, expired,
or other complications, you and the neighbor will have ####problem. If no insurance, I would have the neighbor's
damage fixed at my expense and worry about getting paid
later. A hostile neighbor is not worth a few bucks.
Get it fixed the way he wants it fixed. A new awning.
In this case, you will definitely want a lawyer. They
know tricks for squeezing water from a stone.
I strongly recommend talking to a lawyer. The $100 it
will cost for advice will be worth it. You wouldn't want
to have your lawyer tell you how to remodel your house.
You don't want us to give you legal advice. But, we won't
charge for it and he'll sock you for $100. That's why he's
rich and we're not. Oh, well.
Alan: Definitely withhold the remainder of the payment. I'm a general contractor and would do the same for any subs. It would be up to your contractor to file a claim or pay for it. But I would not pay any more money until all is resolved. You may find out that your contractor does not have insurance, this happens all the time. By the way things sounds if he is irresponsible on his work it maybe the same for insurance. In closing don't pay anymore because you may have to pay for your neighbors repairs.
withhold payment until the neighbors stuff is corrected to their satisfaction
Neither you nor your neighbor have any business knowing who his ins co is . Nor do you have any right or authority to file a claim for him. His ins is to cover his butt. Let him deal with it. (He won't)
You relationship with your neighbor is between the two of you.
Your relationship with your contractor is between you and him.
You have no relationship with his ins co.
You have to control the situation at the point where you have control. Write (paper documentation with dates is always important in things like this) him a notice that unless he has replaced the neighbors awning to their satisfaction by _________date (thjirty days hence is good and reasonable) You will do it through other means and withhold reasonable costs (don't forget to charge him for your time secureing the other contractor) from his payment.
As long as the money is in your pocket, you control the situation. When you pay him, he will lose intrest in you
alan,
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Piffin and Joe both have good points.
Many people don't understand the roll of the insurance companies. There only relationship is with the insured. They have to defend him and pay any claims awarded by the courts, period. When it is clear that the insured caused the damage and it is covered by the policy they often will pay without being sued, but they have no requirement to.
They will not talk to you or your neighbor. You have to go against the contractor.
Joe has a good point. Depending on specific details of your contract with the contractor, your state laws, and the covenant between you and your neighbor YOU might be liable for the damages to the neighbor. See your lawyer about this and the ability to withold final payments to the contractor.
The visit to the lawyer can set you back almost as much as the cost of installing an awning new. If I had to go to the trouble of bringing in a lawyer I would be out for damages to the brick from careless workmanship too. I was trying to keep it simpler than that.
Excellence is its own reward!
Gee......
Isn't this the very thing homeowner's insurance is for?
this thing has turned out to be such a headache. The ideal was to have these guys come in to do this work, I check it at the end of the day to see how it progresses, they do what they came here to do and I paid them for a service that I expected. Instead, I find myself taking the week off from work just to babysit these guys and make sure there are no foulups. Nothing went right, as far as I am concerned but once the work started, what are you supposed to do.......A lesson learned.
I have about $1300 left to pay these guys for the remainder of the job but I do know a similar awning of my neighbors will run around $1700. I'm having my awning replaced also and the bids I received for something similar to theirs was around $1700. So the end result is even if I don't pay these guys, I'm still taking a loss if I replace my neighbors awning at my cost....argh.
I'm going to have to check with my lawyer. Thanks all so far with the advice. My concern is that if I don't pay these guys, they will put a lien on me for unpaid work.
Given all that, I'll agree with Joe. See the lawyer.
But I won't agree, Joe with you thinking of suspecting everything anybody writes here. I'll deal with it at face value unless I see some reason (ie conflicting statements made by the poster) to suspect his version. I find it hard to imagine how the neighbor could have cause dthe mason to spill chemical on his awning. What version do you imagine could compromise what has been presented here?Excellence is its own reward!
Piffin,
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Piffin,
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I don't know what state you are in but here in "The Peoples Republic of Maryland" the contractor would need to be licensed. Filing a complaint with DLLR would help resolve your problems.
Alan,
You ARE entitled to a signed agreement, and the contractors insurance certificate. Read the agreement. You may be able to resolve the issue without starting a war. Send a registered letter to your contractor and his insurance Co. giving notice of the damage, and requesting a response by return registered letter as to what repairs will be forthcoming. Pick a reasonable date for all repairs to be completed and state in the letter. Indicate that further payments will be withheld pending completion of your work and the repairs. Also state that if there is no action by (date), that you will be seeking compensation through your attorney's actions.
Now the contractor and insurance co. are on notice, and you are not acting arbitrarially. If your agreement has any teeth in it, it should at least address notices.
If you plan to reside there for years to come, it's worth a few dollars, if necessary, to keep the neighbors happy. The insurance Co. may not cover the cost of what the neighbor wants for repair or replacement.
Good luck.
Phil has given excellent advice and this is probably all a lawyer would be able to do for you. Anything more extensive is going to cost a lot more money than the whole problem is worth. Be prepared to make good on your neighbor's awning out of your own pocket. You hired the guy. You are, at least in part, responsible for his actions in connection with this work. More importantly, you are a stand-up guy.
Don't be afraid to use the final payment to cover the cost of the new awning. Let the guy file the lien. Pictures of the awning and the receipt for the replacement would convince any judge that he owed you money rather than the reverse. In the event you want to sell the property you can always post bond against the lien which will expire anyway if not acted upon in a court action. Good luck.
There have been many posts on the idiot home owner or DIYr. But this is the very reason why we follow the contractor around and ask questions and try to be involved. I have been going through a similiar situation. I hire these subs, asks questions, they get annoyed and sometimes we even argue. Then the inspector comes and red tags the very things I questioned. Of course, then they turn around and say, "well you didn't tell us", or "the plans are wrong". Always blaming someone else.
Unfortunately for Alan it sounds like he will have to go to court which will cost him more and he still won't have his job done. I just can't understand why more people in this business can't take the time and effort to do a great job. More often than not it seems the norm is to create problems. It boggles my mind.
Steve
"I just can't understand why more people in this business can't take the time and effort to do a great job."
I can tell you one reason, It is because of customers looking for the cheapest bid. When you have professional contractors diligent about providing quality service with insurances and customerrs trying to get the job domne for half or a third of true cost, not to mention profit, then there will be scaliwags trying to jump in and make a fast buck off the customer. Sometimes they deserve each other. I don't know if that's the case in this thread, but I was amazed to find out that it was possible to have a two story building repointed for around two thousand bucks. I would've expected more like 5-7000.
I get this constantly. Someone bids a job for 19,000 when my estimate is 26K and my materials cost is close to their 'bid'. Two years later, I get called to fix all the stuff wrong with the job. They end up spending another ten grand or more.
I don't do 'bids' anymore. Anybody looking for a bid is buying the cheapest price, not a quality job. I estimate and sell a quality job and they are always happy with the work, if not the price.
Excellence is its own reward!
I am sure you will also agree that money does not dictate a quality job. I have seen both, high priced work that is really bad and inexpensive but great work. My point is that if people would do a great job for a reasonable price they would get more work and the industry would not have such a bad name.
I also wonder how many in the industry take the time to improve their skills. I have learned alot from you guys and Taunton press but some of these guys seem to think that nailing two boards together is all there is.
Steve
Once again, thanks for all your input. As crazy as this sounds, but this problem was easily resolved. The contractor spoke to the neighbor and offered to paint the 1 x 3 foot spot and they balked at it. He asked what they wanted and they asked for $200. He rebutted and replied too much, I'll give you $100 and they agreed on that.
I guess I will be starting another thread soon on asking for tips on how to weed out the good contractors from the bad. It's not as if I went for the lowest bid on this scope of the work. ALOT of contractors were asking for $1500 for this 2 story job, and one asked for $2700. This guy was "landmark approved" and he had really fancy cards and all. The one we ended up with was somewhat in the middle, but most important of all was the recommendation that we got from the Roofing Contractor for this guy. Everything seemed to check out until the work began...........
Hopefully, I will have better luck with the gutter and awning crew. 4K for a awning, so it better be properly done.
I'll post some pics when the work's done.
thanks again!
Alan -
You may have done everything right, but just had bad luck. Contractors have bad days, and bad jobs - They're human too.
I like to think I'm pretty good at what I do, but every once in a while I screw up royally. Then I sometimes screw up again in my rush to try to fix the first problem. Some jobs just seem to be destined to go badly from the start - Don't know what it is.
"really fancy cards and all"
ROTFLMAO
sorry but you'll have to watch out for the awning crew too. I had an owner send an awning crew to install on a house I was just finishing up a few years ago. They had been out to preview the job and take measurements so there was no reason for screwups based on lack of info. When they were about 80%finished, I wandered over to visit and saw immediately that the legs were not plumb, the unit was not centered on the window, the attachment was not leveled in (the alignment with window header was off by 2" to my eye) and mounting plates designed for four screws held only two or three (sseveral were scattered on the ground twenty feet below). I asked the foreman to step back a little a nd look at it with me. Without embartassing him in front of his men, I asked him if he really thought that the owner would be willing to pay for something that made the whole house look so goofy like this and that....
He asked me what I thought it would take to satisfy the owner and everything I pointed out was accomplished. But the guy had no clue until it was pointed out with step by step instructions how to to the job.
Yes, I'll agree that sometimes you can pay for more than you get.
Excellence is its own reward!
"More often than not it seems the norm is to create problems. It boggles my mind. "
God knows there are plenty of hacks out there, but in our area, at least, there are many fine tradesmen. For almost any common job, I can think of two or three subcontractors that I would gladly hire. I am looking for them even though we have a good collection of first rate subs who we use whenever we can. Sometimes they are too busy and then we have to use someone else. Sometimes these new guys disappoint me. Do I blame the industry for their shortcomings? No, I pay them for their work and don't use them again. I won't badmouth their work but will tell anyone who asks the nature of the problems that I had with them. It isn't usually a blanket criticism.
We hear about a lot of horror stories here and I don't know of any sure fire way of avoiding them completely. I'm not sure I would use a roofing contractor as my sole reference. You would do better talking to someone who has a broader view of construction, like a GC or a local lumber yard.