Well I won in small claims court against Dave's Construction...of course I haven't seen any money from it but what do you expect from someone like that.
I came over-prepared with email printouts, pictures, receipts, etc. but the judge didn't want to see anything before it was mentioned so as not to prejudice the case. I was champing at the bit to tell the judge everything that happened but restrained myself to the billing error...at least at the beginning.
Jeff says that Dave really couldn't get a word in edgewise because I dominated the proceedings. Nothing that I told the judge about Dave was even contested by Dave. The judge would stop every once-in-awhile and ask if what I was saying was accurate and he would say "yes" so it went pretty smoothly. Dave made Kim (his estimator) and a drywall guy show up to go with him...I hope they charged him for the time, and they didn't even get to speak (tee, hee) and the judge didn't call on Jeff either.
I did manage to sneek in that the quality of the workmanship wasn't good but that I wasn't contesting that at this time...that I was trying to be fair (we'll get back to that later) and that I just wanted to pay for what I got, not be tied to a bill that had radically changed throughout this whole process. Dave said "quality was never mentioned before" but the judge didn't take the bait.
Toward the end of the proceedings, after the judge started subtracting all of the stuff that Dave didn't do off the original bill, he turned to Dave and said "Do any of these changes sound off to you?" Dave boomed out loud and clear "God gave me the talent to build things but unfortunately he didn't make me a good businessman. I leave it up to your judgement, sir."
Well, doesn't that about sum it up? I've been trying to be fair with Dave and instead of looking at his numbers and seeing if he was wrong (and making two businessmen show up to court with him) he was just railroading me because he's not a "business man" and doesn't want to admit he was wrong...and I'm being kind and giving him the benefit of the doubt by assuming even that.
Well, I'm waiting to see if he's going to drag this out. He has about 15 more days of his 30 days to file an appeal and I'm afraid he's going to do it just to tick me off. If he does, I'm going to bring up the quality issues and go for the throat. When I'm done basting him, he'll not only owe the original amount, plus court costs, plus 6% interest...he'll have to give me back the money that I gave him for counter installation, the door he put in that won't open when the dryer is in, the labor of putting back the trim he should have reinstalled and anything else I can think of.....grrrr.
On his way out we heard Dave say "I guess we're working for free now" to his buddies. Well, if you consider $555 for 4 hours of work "free" I wonder what you charge people who aren't paying attention.
And so my lessons learned are:
Changes have to be in writing. Don't let the contractor do any work until you have a finalized estimation. Don't leave anything on the bill that says "may change if more work is involved" or any other open ended billing.
The judge told me that if I disagreed with the bill I should write on my check "Paid under Protest" in the comments section so that there was an understanding that I may file legal claim against him and he has no claim for a lien on my home.
I was very frustrated that Dave was acting as a contractor without my knowlege. If you can find out what will be subcontracted and what will be done by the contractor himself. If the contractor doesn't pay the subs you may end up with a lien even if you paid in full. Wise remodelers ask for lien releases from the subs so you're covered.
If you have to take someone to court DON'T BE NICE!!!! Let them ask for the extra consideration, don't just hand it to them. If I had just gone with the original bill and subtracted what he didn't do I would have had about $200 more than the judgement I was awarded. The judge even said "What's the $149 difference" and I just said "I gave him some for labor and extra drywall." Why didn't I make Dave justify that?
And finally...don't hire Dave's Construction or any service run by David Albers. In his own words he's "not a good businessman!"
No comments:
Post a Comment