Contractor has not finished house remodel or addition

Attorney Robert Hidock: Yes. I hired a contractor to do some remodeling of the house and also put an addition on. This is January of last year. Started doing some work. As of August of last year he has no longer showed up. He no longer answers his phone. It goes to voicemail. Text messaging, same thing. He doesn't answer.

Attorney Tom Olsen: Robert, all I can do is I'm hoping that you haven't overpaid him, paid him more than the value of the work that's been done.

Robert: That's not the case. The contract was 50% down. The job was supposed to be done June of last year, and I figured that he only did about 50% of what I paid so far.

Tom: So you're upside down with him, Robert?

Robert: Yes, about $70,000.

Tom: Robert, when you wrote-- how much?

Robert: About $70,000.

Tom: Robert, when you wrote a check to him or paid him, did you write it to an individual or did you write it to his company?

Robert: Individual.

Tom: Well, that's the good news. It means that you could sue him individually if you wanted to, but Robert, I am so sorry that this is probably not going to end well for you. The good news is you could sue him individually. If you're going to sue him, step number one always is to serve a copy of the complaint on him. If you can't find him, if you don't know where he is, if he's living in another state right now, you're not going to be able to go forward.

Let's just say that you did manage to serve a copy of the complaint on him, Robert, getting a judgment against him, getting a piece of paper signed by the judge that he owes you $70,000, huh, that's the easy part. Trying to collect it, ah, I'm going to call that nearly impossible, Robert. I don't know what to tell you, Robert, other than I'm so sorry and you may just have to bite the bullet and take your loss and move on.

Robert: I know he has rental property and I know he lives here in Orlando. I do know where he lives.

Tom: Awesome. Robert, if he's got rental properties, that great news for you. Robert, I told you that trying to collect money from people is the hard part, keeping in mind that here in the state of Florida, the home he lives in is absolutely protected from your creditor claim, but if he's got rental properties and you sued him, that final judgment would be a lien against his rental properties. You do have some leverage here, Robert, if you want to go forward with that.

Robert: Okay. Now, I also want to continue on with the work here. Do I need to file some type of cease, some type of thing to close out the contract with him?

Tom: Robert, typically what you'd do would be to write him a letter and say, look, if you don't finish this work in the next 30 days, I'm going to hire somebody else under these circumstances. Robert, I don't even think that that's necessary anymore. He's beyond reasonable, Robert.

[00:03:02] [END OF AUDIO]