All Forum Posts by: Timothy Peck

Hello Jon.  Thank you for the help!

Hello.  I am doing some excavation work and the contractor has requested to be paid in cash (two payments totaling $7300).  It is a small town and I know him so although there is some concern that I will be left with an incomplete job and out the cash, my bigger concern is being able to prove the expense if audited.

He mentioned that he has a contract for me (and him) to sign and I will of course request and invoice but should I also cover myself by creating additional paperwork to be signed?  If so, what would that be?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for the feedback.  I think your right, guess I just needed to hear it from someone else!

I am a small business owner and real estate investor.  One of my properties will be vacant at the end of the month and one of my employees is looking to move out of her apartment at the same time.  Wondering if its a bad idea to mention that I have a place available to her.  Of course I know she has steady income but could get ugly if one of the areas in which I am involved with her goes bad (if she starts screwing up at work or is a bad tenant) then the other area is affected.  

Has anyone had experience with this?  Am I asking for trouble?

Thank you for all the advice. I decided to get two additional quotes for the work, as suggested by Nicole. Since the other quotes came in lower the dumpster company finally agreed to split the cost of the repair with me. Glad to be done with it. Thanks again.

Hoping to get advice....I am renovating a SFR in NY and had a dumpster delivered. The contractor ordered the dumpster from a broker company and was there when the dumpster was delivered. The driver knocked the dumpster into a blue stone wall which lines the driveway causing significant damage. When I called the dumpster company to ask for them to fix the issue or to compensate me for the cost to do so they seemed accommodating at first and asked me to send pictures of the damage and to get an estimate. I sent pictures and the contractor provided me an estimate of $2400 to repair the wall which I sent along to the dumpster company.

At that point they said that they thought the estimate was high and that they needed to talk with the contractor.  Apparently there was an argument at that point and then they came back to me and said to deal with the Broker company who we ordered the dumpster from.  As you may have guessed, the broker company said that they were not liable in any way but they would work with us to "mediate" a resolution with the dumpster company.  Back and forth, back and forth and eventually the dumpster company stops communicating and ignores all phone calls and emails.  I threaten to leave bad reviews on yelp, etc. if they do not respond and then they do respond only to tell me that they have no liability in the issue and that there is "inherent risk" in ordering dumpsters and I should have been aware of this.  

At this point I'm not sure where to go with it.  Is it worth hiring a lawyer to try to recover $2400?  Any other suggestions will be much appreciated.