IF/WHEN they lien your property: you will send them a letter demanding them to sue you. at that point the clock starts ticking, they have 30 days to sue you or you can have the lien removed AND they are responsible for any costs associated with you taking the time to write the letter, find a different contractor, waste your gas, etc... make sure you withheld enough :)if they do sue you, as long as you sent them that letter before they file the lien then it will simply be a matter of the court agreeing that you were reasonable with the amount you withheld. by the way, if possible, make sure to hold enough that it goes above $10k. this means it cannot go to small claims court in IL, much more difficult to sue someone above that amount without having to lawyer up at which point they will likely just try to agree to an amount with you in my experience.Simple way to avoid all of this: have your expectations clear and in writing, like you mentioned AND add in Inspections/milestones. this protects both of you from having to deal with this crap. example: scrape garage: inspection, paint coat #1: inspection, paint coat #2:inspection. agree to a basic schedule of values for each item prior to start of work, scraping is worth XXX, etc.. this allows you to pay based off of milestones/work completed.Some items you should be around to inspect during install to catch problems while they are occuring, its good project management, like tile being installed poorly, although that does not change the responsibility for the subcontractor to install the tile per your written expectations.

Wanting cash payment is no problem, on agreed upon terms at certain milestones.

That's a good milestone !!

I'm excited to announce something very special and another fantastic milestone for BiggerPockets.Today, the first article in a new BiggerPockets Real Estate Investing Column on AOL Real Estate has gone live!

It's a great milestone!

:)J Scott - Thanks to you for all you do as well, it will not be long before you hit this milestone as well.Chris Weiler Hey bud, thought I would toss out your name and get some activity out of you!

I appreciate that.Here is the thread post I created on this milestone, feel free to jump in there:http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/25/topics/88832-another-milestone-10-000-forum-posts

I extracted and copied the major milestone dates on my offer form below, but I want to make sure I fill it correctly.

Milestones connected to whys.

Like many of you, our strategy is to purchase value-add buy and hold properties, with the eventual milestone goal of leaving our W-2 jobs.