Client not paying bill..

Fantastic, good luck.

Growing up in the construction business nothing irks me more than to see a hard working contractor get shafted either by a bad general or non-paying homeowner.

 

I have been through something very similar before. A guy hired us to tear down and rebuild his attached garage, which had been badly damaged in a fire started by a cheap power cord. We ended up doing a lot more work than just the garage- aside from tearing it down and rebuilding it, we we moved all of his stuff out of his house for him and put it all in his storage, gutted the house, (the smoke damage was pretty bad in the house) put up new insulation and sheet rock, framed in a new bathroom, took out the chimney and put a window where it once stood, re-roofed the whole place, re-sided the whole house, etc. We pretty much gave him a whole new house. He had agreed to the prices, and for a while, was paying us as we finished the specific jobs. Then, when we finally finished up over there, he was supposed to give my boss the remaining $4,000 upon completion. He never gave it. We tried calling, e-mailing, and even going back to the house to talk to him. He decided (though our work was totally done) that we were 'fired' and told that if we came back on the property, the police would be called. Never got that money (or our tile saw that was still in the guy's house,) so a few months ago, my boss went to the city and filed to put a lean on the guy's property. So if he ever goes to sell the place or anything, he won't be able to, because my boss's name is on the place. The only way that can be satisfied is if he pays the money, because only then will my boss go back to the city to take his name off. (I think I understood/said that right.) The guy also called my boss a few months later and claimed he was going to sue us because supposedly his roof was leaking and his siding was falling off. (Which is bullshit, of course.) Tell me how it would leak in a regular drizzly rain, when if didn't leak in the hurricanes and bad storms we had been through since the roof was done?
But anyways, I know what you're going through on this- but if he's not the actual owner of the property, and is just a renter, I don't know if you could possibly put a lean on his property like we did.

 

Update:

Met with a sheriff today at the substation and had him follow me and an employee out to the property. Gate was open so we just drove up to the house. There was a newer Tundra and a black civic in the driveway. The sheriff went up to the door and knocked several times but no one answered. He told us to go ahead and take back our property while he sat in his car to see if the owner ever came out. After we had everything removed, I wrote up a small note explaining what I did to the water system. The officer then put the note on the front door with his card. Went alot more smoother then I thought it would. While it'd be nice to get paid for the labor costs. I'm just glad i have the equipment back so I can sell it (unfortunately sell it used) to a paying client.

 

Good job man.

That's the way to do it. Keep it above board and if anything blows back, you're covered.

 

Yeah it was pretty simple, I have no idea why I didn't think about it before. But when I called my buddy up and asked him if there was anything we could do. I was relieved when he told me as long as I have some paperwork stating that the equipment is mine and I have not received payment for the equipment I am taking out, that I could go in and remove it. I'm almost 100% positive my ex-client was home when we showed up. He probably was shitting himself when I pulled up with a sheriff and thought he could just act like he wasn't home haha.

 

Probably was worried about the growing.

I take it the Sheriff doesn't worry much about growers as long as they don't booby-trap their plots?

 

Glad to hear it went so smooth for you. Definitely got lucky there. Yeah you have used equipment but at least you got it back and can make the money back on a client that will pay.