Leland, > This advise come a little late, but it probably would have > been a good > idea to have the contractor provide you with a surety bond, sometimes > called a performance bond. A surety bond is kind of like an > insurance > policy to protect you in the event a contractor does not meet his > obligations.
I don't think it applies in our case. I have signed all of the contracts with the subs, and I have control of the funds. The contractor gets paid a fee for 'supervision', which is a lump sum in the contract. What essentially happened is that I was not aware that the indirect was being disbursed along with the direct, so the bank over-disbursed funds and left the kitty dry with respect to the indirect fees. When the contractor submitted an invoice last week for the supervision fee, the bank said they had already paid it out -- without informing us. The contractor structured his contract so that his fees came out 10% at permitting, 40% at framing inspection, 30% at roofing completion, and the remainder at completion. He submitted his 40% and 30% invoices together last week because he was lazy and didn't get "around" to it earlier. I've applied for a loan increase because I can't juggle enough funds to come up with all of the contractor's fees and still keep the subs paid. Apparently, the only reason I've been able to do it so far is because the bank has been over-disbursing the funds without telling us. Plus, I've used our credit cards and cleaned out our savings. We have zero dollars left in any reserves. Zero. I am not about to start selling stuff to handle this. The contractor has a valid reason for being angry. However, he also has been square in the middle of all the problems and didn't help us handle it. He also could have been on top of his own billing. As I said, I'm not on my way to the lawyer. I'm just doing the best I can to handle a huge mess while my husband is in the hospital. Obviously, this is hugely stressful. Kristyne McDaniel _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
