Does it seem painfully obvious that I'm always doing something or tired? I used to write a lot at/from work but my job is simply too demanding - or I'm more conscientious of how much downtime I cash in on
( Read more... )
Thanks - very helpful comment and perspective. I'm sort of a softie, and in compensating for my softieness I sometimes overcompensate and give myself a bee in my bonnet when the gentler approach might actually be better.
Yes! your abc is what I've been nudging, but not putting in writing. But the list of free is incomplete...when I raised the issue that he had charged me extra for the treated brick wall when he should have saved on framing - he responded to note he never charged from ANY of the framing throughout the house, which on inspecting the contract was completely true. Oops and yay. Similar notes were made about the exposed brick wall in the living room and a few other things (escaping me at the moment).
The email follow-up I'm doing.
I hadn't thought of paying less and am not sure how I feel about doing that without being clear up front, but what you say makes sense and just like I'm handicapped regarding dragging him to court - his 120 day contract would be hard to defend and pay to litigate for him as well.
I've noted I'm losing $1200 monthly, but need to check if I did that to him in writing. My opportunity cost of paying to live in VA and not having the basement rental seems fairly clear, and that's easily $3000 monthly and highly likely more.
Unpaid money is substantial, $50-80k on a $250-300k total.
My current goal is mixed...My original and current goal is to put set financial penalties...INCENTIVES...of cuts from his bill if deadlines are not met. Curiously if I commit those to writing now, it precludes applying them away from the final payment as such an arrangement appears to modify the contract then - unstated in that case is now hard to argue as implied.
One positive note - he definitely has not abandoned the job. Even if he did, it's looking at least "ok."
One thing that makes me sad is I wanted to do this again, with this contractor if able. I still do if I can control the timeframes or have a set financial defense if this were to recur, but that does not seem reasonable.
One annoying distinction we discovered about Virginia is that all courts are equivalent jurisdiction, or something like that - whatever the proper terminology is to describe a situation where there is no lower limit to what court a party can bring a civil suit in. A big concern for us was that if he wanted to pursue recovery he was free to start his case all the way in big-boy circuit court, and the cost of entry for the plaintiff is pretty much the same. Further annoying from the perspective of the potential defendant is that there was nothing we could find indicating there was a mechanism to petition for the case to be remanded to a lower, less-expensive-to-defend-in court.
So we were all 3D chess tactics discussing an opponent who turned out to be playing "go fish". YMMV.
Indeedy - my guy is pretty rustic, but that doesn't mean one of his drinking buddies isn't a lawyer. I mean me too, but I have never filed nor do I know a thing about court-court. Thanks again - you gave me something I didn't know about but do know enough about to look up.
I'm also 98% more likely to try and push for a fair settlement, but to do that I need to know what I'm dealing with as you guys did.
Yes! your abc is what I've been nudging, but not putting in writing. But the list of free is incomplete...when I raised the issue that he had charged me extra for the treated brick wall when he should have saved on framing - he responded to note he never charged from ANY of the framing throughout the house, which on inspecting the contract was completely true. Oops and yay. Similar notes were made about the exposed brick wall in the living room and a few other things (escaping me at the moment).
The email follow-up I'm doing.
I hadn't thought of paying less and am not sure how I feel about doing that without being clear up front, but what you say makes sense and just like I'm handicapped regarding dragging him to court - his 120 day contract would be hard to defend and pay to litigate for him as well.
I've noted I'm losing $1200 monthly, but need to check if I did that to him in writing. My opportunity cost of paying to live in VA and not having the basement rental seems fairly clear, and that's easily $3000 monthly and highly likely more.
Unpaid money is substantial, $50-80k on a $250-300k total.
My current goal is mixed...My original and current goal is to put set financial penalties...INCENTIVES...of cuts from his bill if deadlines are not met. Curiously if I commit those to writing now, it precludes applying them away from the final payment as such an arrangement appears to modify the contract then - unstated in that case is now hard to argue as implied.
One positive note - he definitely has not abandoned the job. Even if he did, it's looking at least "ok."
One thing that makes me sad is I wanted to do this again, with this contractor if able. I still do if I can control the timeframes or have a set financial defense if this were to recur, but that does not seem reasonable.
Read every word. Thanks - good info.
Reply
So we were all 3D chess tactics discussing an opponent who turned out to be playing "go fish". YMMV.
Reply
I'm also 98% more likely to try and push for a fair settlement, but to do that I need to know what I'm dealing with as you guys did.
Reply
Leave a comment