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Posted by mrsgator88 on September 27, 2006, 10:30 pm
OK, now we have a little more info. But lets have all of it.
1) Do you have a contract?
2) If so, what does the contract say?
3) If not, what were the verbal terms?
4) How big is the deck?
Any contract will be written to protect the contractor, since he has a lot
more to lose than you. To protect yourself, get written quotes because they
will also state the terms. A quote is often a contract just waiting for
your signature! Each will be different, so just reading them all you'll get
a little better idea of what you want or not in a contract. Remember, its
all negotiable.
Also, and nobody does this, have a construction lawyer look over the
contract. Things that seem obvious to you are not so obvious in a dispute.
For example, the payout schedule. Often this will be "payment of $xxx upon
completion of nnnn". At what point is something complete? When the
contractor says its complete? Or when he's passed inspection for what he's
completed? When are adjustments to payouts made? If you owe $xxx upon
completion of plumbing, and you supplied fixtures he was supposed to pay
for, do you adjust payment at that time or at the end? What if his 12 week
estimate turns into 12 months? What happens if he puts the posts a foot too
close together and now your deck is smaller than its supposed to be? What
if he abandons the job? Do you have a clause that defines abandonment, and
the consequences? What if he's a 65 year old sole proprietor and he dies
mid project? What happens to the advanced money? A good contsruction
lawyer will think of these things. A lawyer who doesn't think of these
things may be a good lawyer, but not a good construction lawyer.
S
>I am currently having a deck demolished and rebuilt for me by a local
> contractor. He has taken every opportunity to charge me "extra" labor
> costs. He pitched to me that he was a "master craftsman" with 26 years
> experience.
>
> He charged me 2 1/2 hours at $75 an hour to unload wood for the deck
> and "examine" each piece. Please note I rented a fork-lift at my
> expense and there were five batches of wood, so it could not have taken
> more that 30 mins to actually unload the wood from the truck 75 feet to
> my driveway.
>
> He charged me $65 an hour for 10 hours since he says the existing (3)
> posts were set deeper than he "could have anticipated" and thus he had
> to rent a bigger jack hammer (at my expense) to dig them up (they were
> set at about 3 feet depth). Interestingly, he then set his replacement
> posts at the same depth of 3' so if he did this, why would he not
> anticipate that the previous contractor might have done this as well?
> Now he wants to charge me "extra" labor costs again to provide flashing
> between the deck and the house which was not present. He tells me
> that this should have been done originally. Well if this is the case
> then shouldnt this be an anticipated step and not considered "extra"
> labor.
>
>
> Bottom line is how can the consumer protect themselves from the
> contractor continually adding labor costs by claiming something is not
> anticipated, or covered in the original bid? I imagine there is
> virtually no job that there is not something that is not anticipated,
> and without some type of specific language in the contract, the
> contractor can use this to screw the consumer. Are there any consumer
> friendly contractor contracts that people have, that I can use in the
> future to prevent being continually screwed by a contractor.
>
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