General Contractor disappeared - AIG Construction Houston

[Asim Iftikhar]

Hello,

I am looking for some help from you all.

I executed an agreement with a general contractor (Todd M) who works for a local construction company in Houston - AIG construction. The estimated duration of work was

6 weeks. After the 6th week, the contractor (Todd M) disappeared, and the owner of the company (AIG Construction) told me that it would cost me an additional $12K to finish the work on top of what was agreed upon initially.

Has anyone been through this before?

I do not want to pay extra and want to explore what options i have. Any help/ advise would be greatly appreciated.

[Michael Hayworth]

@Jay Hinrichs is probably right in this case, that the contractor may have no money. Shady contractors tend to spend money unwisely. But the problem here is not licensing, as Jay implies. Do you really think there's no fraud in heavily licensed states? Ever hear of a little project in Boston called The Big Dig? You don't get much more heavily regulated than the northeast and California, and those states have far more fraud than Texas. In general, things actually work really well here.

The most common problem is, investors get into shaky deals with tight margins and little or no money, need to do a reno on the cheap, and choose a ****** contractor. (Note that the OP's profile says he's looking for low or no-money opportunities.) The entire state is in a building boom. No good contractor needs to work cheap. Hell, I'm a very active investor, but my remodeling company no longer works on investor projects except my own houses.

So if an investor is looking for the lowest bid, he's already fishing in a bad pond.

We've only heard one side of the story. We don't know what the contract actually says, or whether the OP is representing it properly or whether there were discussions about change orders along the way. When I did do investor work, I tried to be extra careful that new investors truly understood what we were both agreeing to and what the scope included. Some of them have deal fever and really don't want to be bothered with details - you see their eyes glaze over, know they just wanna "get started on this deal!" and you know you'll have trouble down the road.

But let's assume that everything the OP says is correct - the contractor is shady and is trying to get more money to finish the project.In that case, @Jess Hewitthas the right course:

• Start with a very clear phone call to the contractor. Lay out the problem, and be firm about your expectations. You can threaten bad BBB and Angie's List reviews, which a reputable contractor doesn't want.

• If that doesn't get results, get an attorney involved. A call from an attorney will make a contractor pay attention. Find someone with experience in construction-related cases.
• You can sue for up to $10,000 in JP court (I believe it's $10,000 + attorney's fees, but I am not a lawyer), and that goes much faster than regular court, so you may want to claim that your damages are $10,000....that's a conversation with your lawyer. If the contractor doesn't show, you'll get a default judgment.
• Now getting a judgement is one thing, and enforcing it is another. But Texas is pretty serious about judgments. That's what Constables are for. You have to pay a service fee to have a judgment served by a Constable, but he'll actually go find the party  with a judgment against them and insist they pay up. In a previous career, I once had cause to sue a client. He basically told me F. U. on a $1200 debt he clearly owed. By the time it became a judgment, it was $3000. The constable showed up at his place of business and demanded $3K. He said he didn't have it. Constable said,, "OK, then we'll need to seize assets we can sell that'll cover a $3K judgment. I'll start with your truck." Magically, the $3K appeared.