Hi all. First time investor here looking for some advice. I purchased my first home in upstate NY recently to turn into an Airbnb. In short, the contractor we hired has been terrible. We original got an estimate from him to do a basic interior renovation (paint, trim touch ups, replace light fixtures, trim work, and refinish floors - no major construction). The original price he quoted me was fair and the timeline was about 6 weeks which also worked for both of us. We signed a contract, his rate was hourly which we were ok with, and we covered cost of material.

We're on week 7 and the work we outlined has not been completed, completed very poorly, or not started. We've paid him $8,000 so far. The majority which has gone towards labor and which was already over our labor budget of $5500 and the rest for materials, all for approximately 3 weeks worth of work. We received a bill from him last week asking for another $8600 for 8 days worth of work.

We have not paid and do not want to pay because he cannot account for the hour he spent on our property refuses to provide an itemized bill of hours spent and people on the job, with a breakdown of tasks completed. Additionally, he said if he were to itemize it, it would take him 4-5 hours and he would charge us for that time.

He did not inform us once, that the labor budget would increase by 3 times the original amount. There were changes to scope, which he claims drove up the cost of time and materials, but there was only 1 change that we agreed on which was installing a new shower surround due to mold found which we allocated an additional $1500 for time and materials. There are also no written change orders but he keeps referring to this as the reason the price went up so dramatically because we added so much to his scope when in fact we actually removed items from scope, and put in time ourselves to finish some items.

in total, we are being billed for 320 hours of labor and are not sure why with the work that has been done and done poorly. He is not licensed, which is our mistake for not doing proper due diligence, the county also does not require him to be licensed. He is threatening us with a mechanics lien if we don't pay, or legal action. We actually want to take him to small claims court because of the damage done to our floors and shower surround. (See pics). Also, 3 of his employees quit because of the way he was running his business and the lack of ethics involved - ex. Spending 3-4 hours finishing rough cut wood and Billing customer when a piece of finished would could have been purchased and used instead

does he have any legal ground here? Does he have mechanics lien rights even though he is unlicensed and not required to be licensed in the county? One of the former employees said he would give a statement stating the work conditions causing him to quit. We also have a large text thread of the contractor agreeing to deadlines but missing them and refusing to give us an itemized bill. As well as pictures of all the shoddy and incomplete work that was done. Looking for some advice. Any help would be greatly appreciated.