I guess you modified the contract so now he's modifying the contract.

Renovator8, I'm allowed to change the scope with change orders, that's contemplated under the contract. Processing fees for change orders isn't. Just sayin'. Taking a deposit for ordering a door and not ordering the door - also not contemplated in the contract. Taking money for electrical work and not finishing it despite multiple requests to finish the job - also not covered. I've been operating in good faith, and have caught him in lies.

Yes, change order fees are common in contracts. They are usually not nominal fees either. It's to discourage the homeowner from changing their mind in the middle of the project. The amount of the fee should be listed in the contract that you signed with him. It's typically a couple of hundred at most.

Then there is the price difference in the scope of the job that you originally wanted and that you now say you want. You cannot unilaterally change the scope of the project, nor can he. If you are going to remove a portion of the project from his compensation, he still has the right to be paid for it, regardless of if he performs the work or not. You contracted for it to be done, and agreed for him to be paid XX.

It would work the same if he unilaterally decided to not perform the work in question and still wanted to be paid for it. He is the one that made the decision to alter the contract in that case, and he is the one that will bear the financial repercussions of that decision, which is to lose monies.

Now, if you both come to a mutually agreeable decision to alter the scope of the original contract where he agrees that he won't do X work, and you won't pay him for it, that's another story. But, you can't just decide to yank work from him that you've decided you don't want him to do, even if you are having problems with the quality of his current work. There are steps that you MUST take if you want to sever this relationship. Otherwise, YOU will be the one in court defending against a mechanic's lien.

Interesting - I asked to hold off on parts of the job and he gave a credit, so we agreed to change orders and he gave me credits. He could have told me that it wasn't ok to yank work from him and I'd get charged here there and everywhere for everything else but it wasn't a conversation we had. I actually figured he would say something but he agreed to change the scope. And I guess now he's getting me back, a thousand cuts.

I asked to change the scope because I saw the writing on the wall, I knew that I'd be unhappy with the work, so do I have to go through with $10K of work that will be problematic that really could wait? I wanted to have him do the extra stuff too but he wasn't properly supervising and never would have, so it should be up to him to be worthy of continued trust and he lost my trust pretty quickly. Can he put a mechanics lien on work I didn't pay for that he didn't do? When he took my door deposit and didn't actually order the door? When there are no stated fees for change orders?

I want to be fair to him. And vice versa.

Was the contract amended and dated and signed by both parties, otherwise the written word will rule I do believe.

This post was edited by millworkman on Fri, Jul 19, 13 at 18:17

The contractor has not been amended at all but the record of payments has been updated to reflect a credit for the revised /smaller scope, and additional payments for additional work, so kind of a tally sheet with work added and subtracted.

Anyway I keep finding problems with the work he has done. We had a thunderstorm tonight and it was raining inside my house. (in HVAC he installed that was vented out through our roof) I expect water problems and mold with this clown's work and decided to get an independent plumber in to check the work. Protecting my house is first, then figuring out how to deal with this bozo. He isn't getting more money from us probably ever, given the losses we're going to face with his shoddy work. I'm now thinking that the architect who highly recommended him and is an apologist for his work might also not get paid any more. (it's not a lot left, we have been paying both guys right on time all along). I think we're just done with this shoddy team and have to move on. Any money goes to the people who clean up their mess.

I'm pretty emotional about it today. Maybe I'll feel differently next week. But he basically stole from me by taking a deposit for a door and not actually using it for ordering the door. And to have the problems we're having to boot. That's adding insult to injury.

I know it's easy to say now but you should probably have dealt with his breach of contract directly instead of with scope reductions. I see this happen when owners get upset, but I oversee my projects and can usually straighten the contractor out or start the termination process so it is not costly to the owner.

Maybe it is still possible to do this but because you don't seem able to separate the issues (it's not easy for an owner) I recommend finding someone experienced in construction dispute resolution to do it for you. And I don't mean a lawyer unless negotiation is his/her specialty.

You have allowed this to become a pissing contest.

Disburse no more funds until all the below quality work has been corrected.

I think the contractor and I just decided to go on a "break" (a la Ross and Rachel) which might have been a break-up. I've been interviewing replacements for the job so that perhaps we call it even. I'm leaning toward walking away leaving him a bit ahead just to let the whole thing go, if I can find someone to finish the last piece of the job with him.

The GC did send his guy today to help resolve the water problems, and he sent his electrician to try to finish up (he didn't but he got about 50% closer). Meanwhile the electrician is annoyed and doesn't think he will get paid - but I've paid the full electrician fee other than substantial completion/completion and the electrician isn't substantially complete, so makes no sense to do the completion payments yet.

The contractor's business partner who came to me said that processing fees for change orders are standard. Most everyone else I've asked locally says they aren't. My contractor admitted that he was looking to capture a profit lost in the reduced scope. Ironically had he approached me for an honest frank conversations about needing more profit I'd have been receptive.

So by way of follow up all these months later - I never used that bad general contractor again but it took weeks to hire a replacement for the exterior work then forever to get him in. Luckily I had my own electrician and flooring person fix his work in the interim and my time/materials contractor install the final kitchen a month later as planned, and worked with a designer to make it work wonderfully (plus a lot of my own time and effort).

The exterior work (window/door conversion) took another 6-8 weeks and wasn’t done until 2 months ago, and while we didn’t save money on the replacement person, we didn’t spend more on them for the same things either.

With the money I spent to fix the bad GC’s work, I was probably out a few grand (sad to say) and my designer figured he was going to leave me in the lurch either way either when he did or toward the end - her theory was that he would leave me in the lurch the moment he was a few grand ahead and could safely run and pull out his profit, so she said NEVER to let him get ahead of me in terms of my paying a moment ahead of work (live and learn). The only thing that galls me is a deposit he never returned, so I’m planning on emailing him with a demand for it back. The demand is drafted, the architect who referred him expects it ��" but I can’t seem to push the button on the email because it will be so unpleasant when I do (he'll refuse to give it back, he'll ignore the email, I doubt he'll actually pony up a penny). The architect who referred him to me has very clear backup for what was wrong and knows it wasn’t acceptable. I’ve left it to him whether to refer the jerk to anyone else. My designer thinks I should just walk away from the lost deposit and figure it was a bump-up in price for the job. Other bids from (now I know) better contractors were well more than the cash I left him with. So while I lost money and a decent amount of security (for example, for the first time in 7 years we now had a mouse on our parlor floor, I figure from something not well sealed behind the scenes by the GC, but who knows; plus I'm concerned because the plumbing he did was so bad that I worry a lot about water issues coming up especially ones I don't know about). But what an education.

By the way, as it turns out the bad GC's electrician left a ton undone and done improperly so I had my own electrician fix that. The plumber who installed the final kitchen pointed out that the GC's plumbing work was shoddy (range's turnoff valve installed at the wrong end of the wall/range connection; bad height of the plumbing for the range etc.); the carpenter showed me a screw sticking down out of a railing the GC's guy installed, about an inch down where someone grabbing it from below could have torn their hand badly (that one galls me the most, and I don't think that was intentional; the GC's guy wasn't that good and the GC never bothered to come check his work... poor hiring and poor supervision were the culprits there).

So beware! I love my new kitchen and deck but who knows what issues lurk behind... not electrical and unlikely structural since I had an architect involved, but more plumbing,,, and some functional like a bad washer/dryer layout because of his poor choices and advice to me on the fly (and I wish I'd had my designer and not the architect for a lot of these decisions, the right advice is so key).

As per my knowledge the contractor can charge a change order fee in the name of processing fee. The basic reason behind the charge is to discourage the homeowner from changing the order. I believe this fare also since some cost is being involved.

How about if the contractor agreed to the change orders (which was really me pulling a lot of the work from him because I disliked and distrusted the work he had done thus far, and was being polite and trying to get through the stuff I couldn't pull from him), mentioned not a thing about any change order fees the whole time, took a door deposit and gave a receipt for it, then never ordered the door and said he was then (without returning the door deposit) charging a fee for change orders equal to the door deposit, and using the monies given and receipted as the door deposit for the change order fees? Is that typical in the industry?

I'd have paid reasonable change order fees had they been reasonable or had he given me a heads up about them when I pulled the work from him and called it a change.

By the way here is a pic of the finished kitchen

Hey good to hear looks like Kitchen came out real nice looking in the end.

Could I ask you what the cost of the kitchen was? (cabinets, counters with installation and basic plumbing/electrical for it)

I'm trying to get a better sense of kitchen costs

This post was edited by yorkiemiki on Tue, Dec 31, 13 at 2:38

Very generally - Countertops were around 3 thousand for the zodiaq, ikea including cabinets was in the 3 thousand range although I never broke out that cost since I bought so much there for the kitchen and returned so much the net cost got confusing, plumbing and electrical were around 4 thousand, installation for the kitchen was around 4500, hardware was not pricey a few hundred perhaps from lowes plus appliances were around 4 thousand. Led under cabinet lights and the two pendants over the island were a few hundred total from Home Depot - and we didn't replace the floor or ceiling but refinished the floor for around a thousand. The sink was around 500 from faucet direct.

I hope that helps! (I'm not including the designer and architect costs since the architect was involved in a bigger project and the designer got us back on track when the architect wasn't getting us to the finish line on the kitchen specifics and we needed someone else to help )