Contractor help past finish date
 

Hey guys i was wondering what u can do if your contractor is taking his sweet time to do the work you hired him for

My grandparents are getting their house renovated and have paid the person for half the job already but its not close to being finished yet. The finish date given to them was September 5, he signed under the part where he wrote the date the job would be completed and at the bottom of the invoice

On a reno job, that "completion date" thing is like saying, "this is the date you don't have a sweet chance in hell of having your house back by" it just doesn't fit on the form.

Unless the contract has a financial penalty clause, then your best case is to just brow beat the guy until its done.

Usually the problem is the contractor ran out of money and can't hire help to complete.

I think this is the problem seems like we are stuck

Not necessarily, that's only one of many possibilities.

It's not unusual for projects to extend past initial finish dates for reasons outside of the contractors control; subs not being available, changes in the scope of work, waiting on finishing decisions. Remember, your Grandparents are not his only clients; a problem on one site has the potential to delay all his projects and you would never be aware of that.

Don't conjecture possible reasons for the delay, it's completely unproductive.
Schedule a meeting with the contractor, find out the real reason and proceed from there.

Unless it's a really small project, staggering the payment schedule for when set completion targets are hit is the best way to structure the payment portion of a reno contract.

A really rough example would be...
20% - at the time the contract is signed.
20% - at the time framing is completed.
20% - at the time mechanical systems are completed.
20% - at the time insulation and drywall is completed.
20% - at completion.

I agreed with Gridlock since i found out today the person that did the tile work was never paid

When was the tile work completed?

It's not unusual for sub-contractors to wait 8-12 weeks to be paid. Usually the sub-contractor is not paid until the contractor is paid, and not because the funds aren't in place.

2-3 weeks ago the whole project was supposed to take 5 weeks in total

In that case, the tile guy waiting to receive payment is definitely not a sign for potential issues.

Like I already said, speak to the contractor and get the facts. Until then no one can give you any helpful advice.

In my experience renos almost never finish when there suppose to. The reason is because you plan on doing certain thing but when you start tearing stuff apart more issues come up, scope of work is changed and everything has to be done in order. Framer waits on demo, electrical and plumber wait on framer, boarder waits on electrical and plumber, tile guy waits on boarders, floor guy is waiting for walls to be finishes and on and on.

My last two reno jobs, one a house and one a 10 CRU food court have both taken 3 times as long as originally planned because they keep adding work. Not sure if the same thing is going on with your grandparents but if they change the scope it does effect finish dates. Also there are things that sometimes pop up that aren't expected which have to be taken care of and again drag everything out.

As said above, sub contractors aren't usually paid as soon as the job is done they have to invoice at the end of the month and then wait up to 45 days and that's if things go well. I can post more tomorrow I'm heading to bed.

thanks for all the advice guys

^^ lol i was telling my grandparents about him the other day actually thinking about signing up for his show...

So, it been a couple weeks, how's the project coming along?

hes still got some stuff to do... he keeps asking for his money trying to pressure my grandpa into giving it to him i told him i'll give him the money when the job is complete and he hung up on me

It was money. Nailed it!

I can see this ending up in court, I would strongly consider speaking to a lawyer.

If you just end the relationship and tell him to F' off, he may file a lien.

The basic gist of how the lawyer might recommend things proceed....

Have an independent assessment of the value of work completed, it may be more or less than you've already paid him. If it's more, pay him that sum; if it's less, off to court to get it. From there, bring in another contractor to pick up the pieces and complete the job.

I wouldn't allow him to complete the job, and I wouldn't pay him another dime until an assessment is done.

The fact that he hung up on you reeks of unprofessionalism, and that would indicate to me that the quality of work may not be up to professional standards either.

I really wish we had something like the RTB for contractor-client-relationships.

Good on you for helping out your Grandparents.

Mike Holmes works in Ontario, not British Columbia, and getting on his show is like winning the lottery because you get a ton of 'donated' work. If you apply for the show, you'll be very luck if you're chosen.

we have 10% left to give him and gave him the other money every time he asked the work is very sub par i could have done better... i'm not being sarcastic i'm hoping he finishes up this week and i will fix the imperfections myself or point them out to him

i was kidding about applying for his show no chance we would get on it would be cool though

Update:

He called my grandparents over to the house telling them the job is complete and to give him the rest of the money. So i went with them thinking he had a few days he could have probably finished all the things (I was there last on September 29) so we got there and the only thing he had done was add a mail slot into the door...

He wanted the whole amount in the beginning so i started pointing out everything that still needs to be done so he was like okay give me the rest of the money except for $2500 and u can give that when we are done.

At the end when i didn't agree to giving him any money and told him to finish the job and i will give him a cheque on the day he completed it.

he went on a rant about how we have to give him the money or hes going to tell all the trades people to come after us for the money and to put liens on the house trying to scare my grandparents into giving him the money.

Now he has called 5 times asking for his money i told him no every time and to complete the job... I don't want him talking to my grandpa because i don't like how he tries to scare them into giving him the money

Edit: So now how do i move forward from this what should my next step be MindBomber said to call a lawyer does anyone know someone that deals with this kind of stuff. My grandparents are also losing a lot of money since this is a rental property will i be able to get that back in court

Edit #2: So he showed up to my house demanding his money again i told him the same thing and he was like i'm going to call all the sub trades and they are going to show up at ur door i told him okay go ahead do that. So the painter called me asking for his money saying he hasn't been paid a dollar and i told him its not my grandparents fault and that we have are only holding back a little bit of money and he has enough of our money to pay you, the painter agreed saying i should keep some money till he is done after that he started agreeing with me so i told him i will call him the day he is done and give him the final cheque in front of the painter so he knows that i paid him and can collect his money off of him

Edit #3 The carpet company called and told me they are owed around 4 thousand dollars. The cheque that they were given by the contractor bounced and now they want there money

Edit #4 The Tile person called and also wants his money the cheque he received also bounced hes owed around $500

What are the uncompleted items?

If you're getting calls from sub-contractors, is their specific job finished too?

You should just get the contractor and the sub contracts all meet up together and go through what's owing and all. If you don't mind the work, maybe agree to specific sub contracts that you'll pay them directly. And whatever that is leftover to the contractor, you'll pay him accordingly.

That way, this contractor won't run and leaving the sub contracts unpaid and them coming to you for it. ( I really think this is one of those scumbags contractors that doesn't pay his sub contracts and is in financial problems.)

No point in going to a lawyer. They are just going to take your money when you can solve it by communicating with the people working.

The problem with this is i wont have any money left over to complete the job once i pay the subs that have done there work like the company that provided the carpets and tiles is all done. I can afford to pay them with out losing money but what do i do if other people come after me for money that i don't have like the company that provided the the cabinets and counter tops

Also i don't think the liens will affect my grandparents because they do not have a mortgage on the house and they are not planning on selling it unless the lien will affect other things but to my understanding it shouldn't affect them

In my experience, sketchy contractors work with sketchy subs, and good contractors work with good subs, with very little intermingling. I wouldn't trust the quality of the contractors or any of his subs work, just based on the fact they're all acting unprofessional. If I had to bring in a trade to finish the contract, it wouldn't be anyone whose been on the site before.

Jas should not pay the subcontractors, he's doesn't have a contract with them (I'm making an assumption based on standard industry practice); Jas has a contract with the Contractor, and the Contractor has contracts with the subs. If Jas has already paid the Contractor for the work completed, he's fulfilled the obligations.

There's not a communication issue, there's a bad Contractor issue.

Sorry Jas, I've know the general process because I've been brought in after the fact to rip out work and replace it when these scenarios take place a couple times. I haven't had to directly work with the lawyers though, the new GC and Homeowners did that.

You definitely need a lawyer, otherwise you're going to have three illegitimate liens and people pounding on your grandparents door.

I guarantee, if you pay him and he'll never set foot on the site again, and the none of the money will reach the people he owes money to.

Thanks mindbomber for the well written out response and u are correct they are all his subs and they all seem to have worked with this guy for the first time my grandparents have no contract with them. i'm going to call a gc i worked with for a little bit and see if he has any advice on how to handle this situation and will call a lawyer i know tom to see what my next step should be to deal with this.

Thanks for all the responses hopefully i'm not making to many grammar/spelling mistakes pretty annoyed and not paying attention

I may have forgotten my contract law its been a while but I thought subs can't lien the house when there is a GC? They have to go after the GC when he is paid, I.e. "paid when paid" clause. At most wouldn't there be 1 illegitimate lien potentially - the GC?

Subs knocking on the owners door sounds sketch as hell =/

i've been using this site Builders Liens

i stand corrected. holy shit that sucks.