Theft by deception in Texas

[Corey Thompson]

Used a contractor on a small make ready on a rental property. They did an excellent job and gave a good bid on another make ready for a house we are purchasing. We are currently working on a rather large rehab on a retail property and had them bid it as well since our normal contractor was still working on two of our other properties. We agreed to let them do the roof and get the add on dried in. That portion of the job was $19,400. We paid them 10k to get started but it wasn't long into it we realized they didn't know what they were doing and we're putting the wrong shingle on the house. We told them to stop a few bundles in, although the house wasn't even ready for shingles. The drip edge wasn't installed properly and they put the hardy on the eves with no osb or moisture barrier behind it. We told them to stop and take the shingles back. They informed us that it was the only shingle that Home Depot had enough of in stock. We called our other contractor to see where he bought his shingles from and decided we would get them from his supplier. The roof wasn't completely felted and one small eve was off. Also the eve that was on wasn't properly dried in. All the shingles they scrapped off were still piled around the house. Lots of work to still be done so the house wouldn't get rained in, and they decided to take Friday off even though it was going to rain on Saturday. At that point we decided to use someone else to finish the roof and had a crew come out and properly dry in the house. 

We informed them of our decision over the weekend and told them we would discuss fair compensation with them on Monday. We decided $1500- 2k was fair and asked them to refund the rest. They have been avoiding our calls every since. Today they send us an edited quick books invoice marked as paid and said no discounts are given for work not done in bulk. Our lawyer is out of town until Monday but I'd like to see if anyone has had an experience like this before. It seems almost like fraud. I know it's a civil case, but is there a criminal case too? 

[Wayne Brooks]

Worked for 20 years as a contractor, mostly as a sub. Spent close to $60k suing one contractor over a $19k claim, collected $81k, so yes.  With no contract, you've got a problem.  There will be a settlement somewhere in the middle.