Contractor Troubles - Roofer

[Aaron Linden]

Hello BP,

I recently hired a roofer to put a new roof on my personal residence and one of my rentals. About two weeks ago I found a leak in the roof of the rental and it has caused some pretty serious damage to the wall in one of the bedrooms. The roofer has been back several times to attempt to fix this leak constantly doing a substandard job and not solving the problem. Last night we had a heavy rain and I found the west side of my personal roof is also leaking. 

When I "screened" this guy, I got his license #, bond #, and three references (all of whom I called and received good recommendations from).

At what point do you walk away and hire another contractor to come fix the job? I have called around, everyone I have found around South Bend is out 2 weeks on a quote and over a month on any work. What would your next steps be? Do you walk away from the $12k spent on the roofs and have them redone? Do you go after his license and bond?

I think I have at least learned the following from this experience:

1. NEVER hire a contractor you have not used before to do more than one job.
2. Baby sit everything a new contractor does
3. Double check with the city to see if a permit was pulled and inspection completed on jobs like this

What else should I be learning from this?

Aaron

[Max T.]

keep having him come back until it is fixed or until he offers to pay you to go away

only go after his paperwork if he starts ducking you

let the guy fix his mistake. leaks can be hard to diagnose and often require process of elimination, which takes time and several storms and unfortunately often more damage