Help! In desperate need of legal advice...

[CarlD]

My brother's closest friend is a pit bull of a criminal lawyer who had a kitchen remodeler pull that nonsense on him. He did a lousy unfinished job but wanted his money and sued. By the time they were done the contractor had to pay HIM three grand!

[webfeet]

I understand what you are facing. Just read some of my threads. I am in the process of suing my PB at this time. I am in south Arkansas, PB is out of Monroe, LA. The suit is filed in Monroe. My attorney practices in both LA and AR. I still have $5800.00 of PB money, but I need more than that to fix the mess he's made.
Best of luck. Keep us posted. Webfeet

[Jeffski]

Great advice from everyone. I will only add that the lien doesn't really mean squat until you try to sell your house, which I'm assuming you aren't going to do since you just put a pool in. Don't lose sleep or let him bully you with that. You can get the lien released (if he can even get one) after you resolve the money part of this. Sounds like a court date is in your future. Good luck and stick it to him.

[Strawfoot]

Great advice from everyone, thank you!

We are at a point where the pool is completed enough for us to enjoy and we are going to small claims court to either A) drive these snake oil salesmen out of business, or B) recoup some money.

It is really not a bad looking pool, I'll post some pics later. The guy who built and designed the pool quit their company because he wouldn't work for free, and they have pretty much sent out gomers to do any follow up maintenance.

The liens from the subs are no longer an issue, though they still have a mechanics lien against us from when the job started. We ALMOST have our backyard in shape, and we are fixing to go round and round in small claims to recoup the money we spent to bring everything up to code. Gas, plumbing and water for the cabana got green tagged today, after we took out the permit in our named and re-subbed out the work!!! Electrical is next.

Thanks to all of you. Do NOT do business with Backyard Fantasies of Haltom City/Grapevine TX, as they are anything but such...


Mike
Arlington, TX

[cleancloths]

I had problems with a contractor once, but he learned a few important lessons. I insisted when we signed the contract that it have penalty clauses, otherwise I would not do business with him. For each day past a set date he had to pay me $100 a day until the job was completed. Further, when he got slow I insisted that I pay his subs directly and deduct that amount from anything I owed him. Finally, in our town it is illegal (yes illegal) for a homeowner to make a final payment to a contractor until the town approves the job. This gives you added protection.

[Strawfoot]

Electrical for the cabana gets greentagged today. It's been about an additional $1000 to bring their shoddy work up to code. To sum up, they jammed us pretty good on our deck (we paid for 767 sq feet of Rainbow Handseed and gotm 560 ft of washed aggregate pea gravel) , and on the main filter pump. Get this, if they had installed a Hayward Pump as the contract insisted, instead of the Pentair Challenger they gave us, we would have three years warranty with Hayward instead of one. How do you put a price on that?

If they had just paid the deck contractor in the first place, we may have never figured all this out. We had a problem with the Hayward heater, and the first thing the technician said when he came to our place was, "wow, that's not a Hayward pump..."

We have withheld final pool payment, finding them in default, and will let the court settle it.

Any advice for heading into Small Claims will be greatly appreciated!!!


Mike
Arlington, TX

[webfeet]

I took a roofing company to small claims several years ago. I was lucky, the owner didn't show, and I won by default. He flew the coup, and all I could do with my judgement was use it as a tax write off.
However, I had all my paper work and documentation in order before I went to court. If you have kept notes of conversations, have those handy too.
I have reached a settlement with my PB. I am keeping the final payment that was due him, and he is paying half my attorney fees. We are settling out of court. The lawyer made out with $1500.00.

Webfeet

[gverntz3]

PB left and never finished the job. Hired an attorney and in the intermin the PB filed bankrupcy. Had no choice, but to accept 10 cents on the dollar that he owe me to finish the pool. The money I received from the PB was used to pay for my attorney and filing fees. No one wins!!!

[handy1]

We too had a problem, not with our pool remodeler but with the stamped concrete decking company who were total idiots (we won't even attempt to talk about that.)

Remember, if you are using a licensed contractor (and you should ALWAYS do that) you also have recourse with the state's department of licensing & regulation. Licensed contractors are required to post a bond, which will get you at least part of your money back even if they fold.