Home Improvement Today?

I don't know much about residential construction or what kind of contract you've got so I'm not an authority. But for a little perspective, in commercial construction, $500 per day "liquidated damages" (which is basically what you're dealing with) is average for multi-million dollar contracts. Your math is right, but using it in this instance is not quite right. Each draw should be based on the percentage of work completed during that billing period. So dividing the total contract sum by total number of days isn't quite accurate.

 

so what would you do? I think 50$/day is a joke and won't motivate them to finish at all next week. I want them done next week like we agreed to.

 

I can see this from both sides, both working in commercial construction and having just finished a major home renovation myself, using some subcontractors. I mean, legally, recourse for this should be laid out in your contract with them. Is there any language in there about what to do in this instance?

 

no because they've gone over their original proposed contract timeline from the beginning.

honestly, I will 100% admit I haven't had the paper work done in the manner that I should have because I thought I was being the nice guy and being lenient with them and helping them out, but they've basically just made me non-priority as they feel like it.

 

Ouch. Unfortunately, I think this is how a lot of residential contracting goes. In commercial construction we are all bound as subs to extensively written subcontracts with the general contractor, we are also bound by the general contractor's contract with the owner, all draws are approved by the owners representative and the architect blah blah blah.... It seems like a lot of residential shit is done by the seat of the pants with contracts made up from MS Word templates that neither side reads.

But it sounds like you do have a contract? They have just been behind schedule and in breach of it since the beginning so the fact that they're late now isn't surprising to you.

Do you feel like they're intentionally fucking you over, or that they are generally decent people that maybe haven't taken the job as seriously as they should've and will be a week or so late? That would affect my next step if I was in your position.

 

The second one. They are decent people, who just don't make this job a priority and don't seem to care much. Piss poor project management and scheduling on their part. Their original proposed 5-6week timeline has taken well over that with them missing enough days that they haven't even been on site for a total of 5-6 weeks worth of days.

I work in government contracting (commercial HVAC projects basically) so I understand the ins and outs of it all, and I know residential is different, and that I should've gotten more in writing from the beginning...but it's where we are.

Ok so what's your next step

 

Damn, I don't know now. Hahahaha. I had an answer if it was the first one. But it sounds that much like you, I'm a nice guy. Maybe just ask for a meeting and have a serious sit down with the foreman(or PM, or owner however far up you think it needs to go) and express your issues. Outright expressing the fact that it's becoming a real issue for you, and if things can't get wrapped up very soon, further action will have to be taken. Talk using real dates, write those dates on paper and have everyone sign them. Agree to a daily liquidated damages rate and have everyone sign that. You said $480, they said $50. See if you can get them to $100. Even at $50, that is a constantly burning monetary fire under their ass to finish.

 

You negotiate the complete date and penalties for not getting done on time prior to signing a contract and you put it in the contract.

If all of that isn’t in the contract... yikes.

 

yeah yeah I know...

 

I'm one of the owner representatives on large (30 - 150 million dollar) projects. We've only ever gotten close to liquidated damages a couple of times and I think ours are in the $10,000/day range. (liquidated damages are not in my scope but I know from hearing what the contractor says they are big enough to seriously get their attention. On one job we offered a bonus for every day early they completed) If you don't have damages in your contract your bargaining position is weak. But, depending on their sophistication they might not know that.

I had a flake contractor do some work on my house. When the job wasn't up to standard, he walked away without the final payment rather finish it right. I wouldn't pay them until I was sure they would finish, because once they have money in hand you might not see them again.

 

Yeah, I should've clarified that I was speaking from the position of a subcontractor. $500-$2,500 a day is typical in my line of work. Add together all the subcontractors, plus direct to the general contractor and I'm sure they get WAY up there. We typically do 500k - 5 million dollar work (our subcontract cost). Roughly 30% private commercial, 70% public commercial work (schools, libraries, government buildings etc.).

 

I'd only pay what work they have completed, otherwise who's to say they dont bail on you if you pay them a week ahead, leave the work incomplete and unfinished/crappy. Then never return. That would be worst case scenario.

 

Yeah I’m definitely not paying them ahead of schedule. I’m just tired of them never meeting what they said they will or doing what they said they would do. He agreed in messages we would have a discussion on being late and them making up for it monetarily so that’s what we aren’t having today because I told him he isn’t getting more money till we come to an agreement. He has added about 2k worth of things that I only verbally agreed to pay for so I’ve got that over him that he doesn’t have I’m writing for me to pay for.

 

No worst case is they file a lien on your house after not finishing and you not paying. In my case the flakey contractor was at least willing to sign the bill paid in full. Still left me with a mess to deal with though.

 

They agreed to 200$/day discount if they don’t finish by next Friday. Works for me.

 

This

 

Looking good I can empathize with you...we just finished this job up for a friend.


4BYTOY

 

Well, I got a good laugh the other day. I cut open a kitchen wall to run some wiring for another kitchen circuit for a friend's rental. He mentioned that a previous renter claimed she heard mice in the kitchen at night. But the renter could never see the mice nor catch the mice. Well, I cut the hole in the wall for the wiring and as I was cutting toward the floor; I noticed that the sawing felt a bit strange.......pulled the sheetrock off and out fell all kinds of cat food. The mouse was taking the cat's food, crawling through the hole in the sheet rock by the range cord, and depositing the cat's food.





4BYTOY

 

that's a lot of food for one mouse to carry. is the cat blind?

 

We had that in a house I renovated where the previous owners kept parrots and macaws , in some rooms every stud bay had about 2' of bird seed husks inside it