Contractor Past Time Estimate on Flip - Suggestions?

[Tim Porsche]

Hi All, I'm in the middle of doing my first flip project and I'm in a bit of a tricky situation at the moment. I hired a contractor who I have worked with previously on several occasions for smaller jobs at my rental properties and always did a great job. The contractor is in charge of doing about 80% of the work on this flip. We signed a contract back on 01/18 of this year and he originally estimated 6-8 weeks to get everything done. There was about $21,000 worth of work to do, including labor and materials. 

The first two weeks started out great. He got in there with his crew and made some pretty good progress. After the first two weeks though, they would only show up maybe one day every week or so and progress has been slow. There was always a semi valid sounding excuse though. We are at the 8 week point now and I'd estimate only about 50% of the work he was supposed to do is completed. I have paid him about $16,000 so far and he has completed about $12,000 worth of work, so we are roughly $4,000 ahead on payments I'd say. 

I've told him I'm a bit concerned that only 50% is done so far and tried to get him to give a date when the rest of it will completed but he doesn't seem to want to give a firm date on anything. My question is, what would you rehabbers who have more experience recommend doing in this situation? The only options that I can see are...

1. Let him go and try to find another contractor to finish the rest of the work. 

2. Keep waiting and hope he'll start dedicating more time to working on the rehab.

3. Keep letting him work until he eventually and hopefully completes the remaining $4,000 worth of work that I've paid ahead of him completing, and then let him go if things still are not working out. 

If I go with option 1, I worry about losing the roughly $4,000 worth of work I paid ahead of him completing. If he's willing to refund me that money, great, but if not then the only recourse I have would be to file a dispute on the credit card I used to pay him with. The last credit card payment was for a little over $7,000. From what I understand I have 60 days from the date of the payment to file a dispute...which would give me until 03/25 (three days). I feel like if I file a dispute I'll lose any good will and the working relationship I have with the contractor, but on the other hand I feel like if I don't file a dispute I might be out of that $4,000. Not sure on the best course of action here...any advise would be super appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Jo W.]

@Tim Porsche First of all don't be too hard on yourself, it's your first flip and we all do those mistakes, just learn from those mistakes.

Mistake number 1. I'm assuming you don't have a time frame set in the contract? Big mistake! Always and i mean ALWAYS have a set date in the contract.

Mistake number 2. You paid for a job that was not done, you need to set time in the contract when the contractor is getting paid.

If your contractor is playing games you should be very firm and assertive "So, you said that you are going to finish the job by X and you didn't finish the job so here is what's going to happen, i will visit the job site every day this week and if i see that you are not making any progress i will have no choice but hiring someone else to finish the job and filing a dispute" 

As for the dispute itself i would be careful as he can easily put a lien against the property and that will cost you more than 4K