Got Badly Shtooked by Contractor in CT, Need Help

[Jeff G.]

Long story short: my GF and I hired a contractor to renovate our condo. We had some issues with our bathroom surround not being water tight. We caused "indoor rain" on our downstairs neighbor's bathroom. At the advice of our condo association's superintendent we hired a guy. He looked legit. I googled him. He had insurance. We ant to get out from under this place and BRRR our way to financial freedom going forward.

A long story short: in APR 2017 his "repairs" failed, catastrophically specifically the plumbing work done by a subcontractor. As it turns out nails had been driven into studs without strike plates between the studs and the copper pipe. Friction between the pipes and the nail heads eventually caused holes to form in the copper and... the downstairs neighbor got flooded a second time.

Further inspection revealed that he had not properly remediated the water/mold damage the last time (he just covered over wet drywall allowing mold to grow in the gap between floors) and basically did a terrible job.

We filed a claim with our home owners insurance company. They (eventually) cut us a check. We haven't cashed it, and we won't until the legal dust clears.

HIS insurance company is dragging its feet. We still haven't gotten a payout. Our condo company is going after his insurance company too, because he caused the complex basement to flood.

I did some additional digging on this guy: he has no corporate entity, he's just a guy with a DBA. Also, it seems he is NOT a licensed contractor. Side note: I was under the apparently mistaken impression that in order to get contractor's insurance you had to be licensed in CT.

We still have holes in our bathroom. The downstairs guy has no walls in his bathroom.

At this point, we really need to get a lawyer involved because the process is moving far too slowly. Or poor downstairs neighbor has been a complete gentleman about the whole thing but God only knows how long that will last, we all have our limits. Unfortunately, I'm not sure where to turn for this specific kind of incident.

If I wanted a divorce/custody lawyer I'd have been done with my search in 5 minutes. I've looked around for lawyers, but I can't find an obvious match based upon the usual "niches" on lawyer finder sites. I do know some lawyers, but they're all out of state and this is kind of embarrassing anyway.

ANY advice for dealing with this situation is welcome. Lawyer suggestions are welcome. We're just tired of being in limbo here. Thanks in advance.