This is the long awaited show -- your stories about Contractors and their failings. Sometimes dishonest, sometimes incompetent, always the source of -- let's say -- interesting situations with our rehabs. To be fair, there are plenty of good, honest, hard-working and competent contractors out there. They may even be in the majority, but the horror stories are prevalent. It usually takes some time, but after sufficient time has passed, these stories can be a source of entertainment. So, enjoy! ...and try not to cringe. Lessons: Clear and detailed Scope of Work Due your diligence on the contractor References The NOT References Insurances, GL, Workers Comp License Clear contract Clear payment policy, including interim lien waivers Monitor the progress Monitor the property, vary your schedule. Protect your investment Emails: Ron: Contractor was hired, asked for money to get started. Never showed up to do the first bit of work. Raymond: Contractor completed 41,000 in work and was paid. Still lacked 2000, but after two weeks, had not been back to the job site. I fired him. 2 months later he liened the property for $17,000. Ended up settling for $5,000 because that was cheaper than the legal fees to fight it. Erin: We finished up the job and everything looked great. I paid the final invoice, got my lien waiver. Two weeks later the AC wasn’t working right - it was supposed to be brand new. I called the contractor. He blamed the sub, gave me that guys’ number. I called him and he told me he installed exactly what the contractor told him - and he had said it was insufficient, but the GC wanted to save money. I ended up having to redo the entire system with a different AC guy. Lisa: Everything went exactly as planned. Contractor finished on time and on budget. We paid, got our lien waiver signed. All was good. Two weeks on the market and we had multiple offers. Then we discovered that one of the subs had filed a lien on the property because they had not been paid. I notified the contractor that this sub had better get paid or a shit storm was heading his way. It was resolved, but I had to find a new contractor. Franklin from Macon: The day after my job was complete I met the realtor at the house to list it. When I got there I discovered that both brand new air conditioners and all of the brand new appliances had been stolen. Guess what? Those items were not covered by insurance. So I had to fork over another $10,000 to replace them all. It turns out that one of the subs had all the stuff and by the time they caught him he had sold everything except one of the AC units. We are working through the courts on a restitution plan but it may take awhile for me to get my money.
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