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Updated almost 4 years ago on . Most recent reply
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Dealing with bad contractors
Good Evening,
A little background on me, I am a Real Estate agent in New Jersey and my wife and I are currently house hacking a duplex and we have been here for a little over a year. With a baby on the way we decided to renovate our bathroom and kitchen before the baby comes. We had a few contractors give us quotes and decided to go with one company. The father and son duo said they will be able to complete the job in two weeks at the latest because it's a small project. The bathroom was a full gut down to the studs, new shower, ceramic tile, etc and I would say its a standard size bathroom. The kitchen we're only doing new flooring. (the grammar is going out the door as I am angry typing lol) The whole 1 bedroom unit of the duplex is 696 sq ft so the timeline is reasonable. However, the guys missed a few days due to weather which was understandable because we got a lot of snow but this weekend they didn't show up and didn't answer the phone and later said they had an "emergency" once they came back to my house 4 days later I found out the emergency was them starting a bigger job of 5 houses in Baltimore. Right now I have an unusable bathroom and Yesterday I drilled down to them that I have a pregnant wife in this job that needs to be completed as soon as possible because we are already past the deadline and they promised me they would finish the ceramic tile today but guess what? They didn't show up and won't answer the phone and I bet they are back in Baltimore. Should I fire them? I'm not sure what to do with them. They have all their tools here and a yard full of junk from the gut, however I have only paid a deposit.
Most Popular Reply
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@Michael A Moore Jr Sorry to hear about your issue with those guys. The first question is: did you sign a contract? Do you have anything in writing holding them accountable? 2nd are these actually licensed pros or just two handymen? Given how unprofessional they are, who is to trust their construction is up to code and won't fail. 3rd, how much is left to do? It seems they just need to tile, so I'm guessing all the roughing is done.
If you have nothing in writing there shouldn't be an issue firing them. Tell them they are being fired for not showing up and falling behind on their schedule. Unfortunately hiring a new contractor to finish up might be more expensive because they might want to start from scratch. Very few people will want to guarantee anything over someone else's work. If you had permits pulled and an inspection then you can put a new contractor at ease by mentioning that.
With regards to the debris just toss it. The tools I would return to them and document what's there so they can't say you stole something or threw it out. Good luck.