Over paid my contractor, do I have any options?

[Darryl R.]

Hello,

So I have had a flip going on that just finished rehab and is under contract. Our original construction contract had an estimated finish date with the majority of work being completed by 12/31/20. It took 5 additional months with a lot of added holding costs. We had an agreed contract amount and we did make some changes during the rehab that we gave verbal go aheads to as well as some via email. These additional costs should have been about $50k in my estimate. We are close to $175k over the original budget. Every time he has asked for money I paid to keep it going especially since it was so far behind. I believe I have way over paid and I know I shouldn’t have but I did. I needed to keep it going with time constraints. Do I have any recourse here or options to recoup my money that was over paid? Or did I make the fatal mistake of continuing to pay even though I knew it was way to high? Any help or insight is appreciated. I’ve got thick skin so you can tell me I’m an idiot also haha. Thank you for your time.

[Todd Rasmussen]

@Darryl R.

What email can I send invoices to that get paid without questions??? :)

You are essentially S-O-L in my opinion. I asked him to do extra work, he asked for the payment, I paid, and now it was too much seems real flimsy to argue with a straight face.

If you didn't keep track of what it was really costing, you are going to have a hard time proving you overpaid. Maybe ask him for a general breakdown of the changes and the cost. If his numbers are less than you paid, then you can ask, but I don't think you should have any expectation of getting refunds.

You are allowed reasonable actual damages from the delay, but if you didn't get revised timeframe from added work it'd be real easy for him to layout five months worth of labor on top of the original timeframe and attribute it to changes you requested.

This sounds less like, "I overpaid" and more, "I didn't manage". It's happened to all of us in one way or another, hopefully this is the most expensive mistake you make... and hopefully it's a really competitive market when you sell.