Tile Contractor Threatening Lien

[Lauren Daly]

We hired a tile company to retire our bathroom showers and floors. The guy was very nice and mostly professional, except he just kept delaying my job because he was busy on other projects and mine was small. Originally when we bought the house he gave us a quote for redoing all 1600 sq ft of the floors and the 2 showers. On the quote, which was explained to me, my fiancé and my realtor, he charged $665 to install 266 sq ft in tile in the kitchen, bath and utility, $600 to remove the tile in the kitchen bath and utility and $300 to remove the shower in the master (which was plastic) and put up backer board for the new shower. At the bottom of the quote he wrote "LABOR ONLY". It's all pretty clearly written on the quote, and all 3 witnesses remember the explanation the same way. Now, after 2 weeks of waiting for this guy to come out, he finally did. He brought 2 guys, and they removed the tile surround in the guest bath tub and the shower. It took them less than 2 hours and then they left because we needed some framing repairs from some previous water damage. We fixed the framing the same day they were out, but the guy couldn't "fit us in his schedule" for 2 more weeks. We have a tenant who wants to move into our condo in 1 week, so we found someone who could fit us in sooner, and fired the original tile company. Basically at this point, I owe him for removing 1 plastic shower and 1 tile surround in a bathtub. Yesterday, this guy calls and tells me my bill is $600 from the "remove tile" line item, and says he will give me a discount to $500 because we had our own dumpster. I tell him I will pay him $300 which is pretty much his shower removal + backer board line, but I calculated the prorated tile removal and $200 for removing the shower but not installing the backer board. He says that the $300 was for his material cost for waterproofing my new shower, and it's $500 or he will file a lien on my house. Now, I'm pretty sure he's posturing, but I don't want that headache... I let it go for an hour and he responded that he would take $400. So I told him to pick up his check today. All of this may be completely irrelevant because I never signed a work order of any sort, so I'm not sure he could even file the lien. I'm pretty sure he is just pissed he lost the job, and it's the time of year when people start to try to figure out how to pay their Christmas bills... 1st question: (I need this answered more than anything) My quote and dealings have been through this guys LLC. I will ask him to sign a lien waiver today when we give him his (extortion) money. Do I need to ask him to bring the waivers for the 2 labor guys he brought to my house? 2nd question: what did I do wrong, and what's the better way to handle contractors? I know the list will be long, so please be gentle!