C
crush
Guest
Ok here is the simplest way to put this. I'm sure this is a classic one.
-I bought a new house and need to sell mine asap, but it needs hardwood flooring.
-I hire a flooring person to install hardwood floor in my home.
-He says he can install it in two weeks if he rushes
-To make things more interesting, he's leaving on a months vacation also in two weeks so won't be around.
-He takes 50% deposit.
-The first week, he calls at odd times when he knows we are not at home, leaves messages, when we call him back he doesn't answer his phone. Basically pretends he's involved.
-At the end of the first week, he has not purchased any wood, asked us about colours, shopped around for prices, given us quotes on the wood, etc.
-We lose confidence in him that he's going to install the wood before he leaves and then hire another contractor to get a bigger crew and install the wood.
-The contract stipulated that he would handle the quotes, colouring, etc and he did nothing.
Comments?
Basically it got to a point where he could not reasonably install the hardward floors in the timeframe with him leaving for a month and a half and my home selling.
I told the person I would pay him for the time he gave me and agree not to bad mouth his business and asked for the 50% deposit back because we both knew he would not finish the floor. Let's be honest here.
He said he could sue us for the full amount of the work, but would be 'nice' and he would keep 50% of the deposit and let us off the hook.
Yes I know it's silly of me to do a contract like this, but this person was recommended and i'm new to this game. I built a trust relationship with him and things changed drastically after he had the deposit.
Again, he did not render anything written in the contract. No install, colors, woodtype, prices, etc. Nothing but messages during work hours at our home phone line when he knows we aren't home.
Peoples natural instincts are to defender the vendor in many cases, and I left out a lot of details to make this as short and factual as possible. Trust me, it got the point where we knew he was just dicking us around and wasn't going to do the work before he left. He also brought up stipulations in the contract that if we cancelled, we owed him all outstanding payments. I think he wrote it knowing he wasn't going to install the floors and then just take off and keep the deposit because of all the timelines involved. Again, there's a LOT of details i'm skipping on.
Do I have any legal recourse? I know not all judges are judge judy's and the real legal system doesn't work that way.
Or just anyones comments would be greatly appreciated.
Hey Emily thanks for the response. The house was going to be showing and I needed the floors installed ASAP. Waiting another two weeks would set me over another mortgage payment. We all fully understood this situation verbally.
I paid half his labor cost, not the wood. He said in the contract he would shop for the best price and get back to us with a list of choices, types, colors, etc and a week past and he never even did that. Many of the wood places have to order in the wood in our area and now installation is an impossibility unless a large work crew installs and even then now it wont be done realistically.
-I bought a new house and need to sell mine asap, but it needs hardwood flooring.
-I hire a flooring person to install hardwood floor in my home.
-He says he can install it in two weeks if he rushes
-To make things more interesting, he's leaving on a months vacation also in two weeks so won't be around.
-He takes 50% deposit.
-The first week, he calls at odd times when he knows we are not at home, leaves messages, when we call him back he doesn't answer his phone. Basically pretends he's involved.
-At the end of the first week, he has not purchased any wood, asked us about colours, shopped around for prices, given us quotes on the wood, etc.
-We lose confidence in him that he's going to install the wood before he leaves and then hire another contractor to get a bigger crew and install the wood.
-The contract stipulated that he would handle the quotes, colouring, etc and he did nothing.
Comments?
Basically it got to a point where he could not reasonably install the hardward floors in the timeframe with him leaving for a month and a half and my home selling.
I told the person I would pay him for the time he gave me and agree not to bad mouth his business and asked for the 50% deposit back because we both knew he would not finish the floor. Let's be honest here.
He said he could sue us for the full amount of the work, but would be 'nice' and he would keep 50% of the deposit and let us off the hook.
Yes I know it's silly of me to do a contract like this, but this person was recommended and i'm new to this game. I built a trust relationship with him and things changed drastically after he had the deposit.
Again, he did not render anything written in the contract. No install, colors, woodtype, prices, etc. Nothing but messages during work hours at our home phone line when he knows we aren't home.
Peoples natural instincts are to defender the vendor in many cases, and I left out a lot of details to make this as short and factual as possible. Trust me, it got the point where we knew he was just dicking us around and wasn't going to do the work before he left. He also brought up stipulations in the contract that if we cancelled, we owed him all outstanding payments. I think he wrote it knowing he wasn't going to install the floors and then just take off and keep the deposit because of all the timelines involved. Again, there's a LOT of details i'm skipping on.
Do I have any legal recourse? I know not all judges are judge judy's and the real legal system doesn't work that way.
Or just anyones comments would be greatly appreciated.
Hey Emily thanks for the response. The house was going to be showing and I needed the floors installed ASAP. Waiting another two weeks would set me over another mortgage payment. We all fully understood this situation verbally.
I paid half his labor cost, not the wood. He said in the contract he would shop for the best price and get back to us with a list of choices, types, colors, etc and a week past and he never even did that. Many of the wood places have to order in the wood in our area and now installation is an impossibility unless a large work crew installs and even then now it wont be done realistically.