My question involves a consumer law issue in the State of: Virginia
Contractor is taking me to court.
I hired a unlicensed contractor who is not a US citizen to renovate a fixer upper. I pulled the permits as an owner. The contract was simple. The whole project was $125000 for both labor and the materials. The list of the jobs was included. Verbally the contractor promised to perform any rising small additional jobs at no cost.
I was paying cash in relatively same amounts as the work was progressing. Almost every job was done, the contractor was living a lot of “touch up” behind promising to fix it sometime in a future. I was not happy with his performance. Twice I was asking him to stop and leave. He was begging to continue and promising the superior quality.
After the contractor broke two expensive glass shower doors, both from different sets and the window, I told him that he is not touching anything in the house anymore and that he is fired. At that point I have already paid him $86000 in cash and I paid about $18000 for the material. All together $104000
After he left, I have to deal with all the “touch up” plus. I spent $5000 to redo three showers because they were done wrong and leaking water through the ceiling, $7000 to do about 2/3 of the “touch up”, $1000 to connect the outside HVAC that were forgotten to connect, $10000 for the flooring. There are also estimates for jobs that were included into the project and were not done yet: fixing the roof leak $4000, fixing existing and installing new railings $1200, redoing of the breaker box and other electrical issues $2750, $400 shower doors installation, and the rest of “touch up” $2000. It all together is $29750
Unfortunately the city inspector overlooked many problems and signed the final inspection before lots of things were completed.
The contractor got a lawyer and requesting me to pay him $25000. The court date is 05/16.
Will be I able to defend myself without hiring a lawyer ($5000 flat rate)? Will it help if I hire an independent inspector to prove my point?
Contractor is taking me to court.
I hired a unlicensed contractor who is not a US citizen to renovate a fixer upper. I pulled the permits as an owner. The contract was simple. The whole project was $125000 for both labor and the materials. The list of the jobs was included. Verbally the contractor promised to perform any rising small additional jobs at no cost.
I was paying cash in relatively same amounts as the work was progressing. Almost every job was done, the contractor was living a lot of “touch up” behind promising to fix it sometime in a future. I was not happy with his performance. Twice I was asking him to stop and leave. He was begging to continue and promising the superior quality.
After the contractor broke two expensive glass shower doors, both from different sets and the window, I told him that he is not touching anything in the house anymore and that he is fired. At that point I have already paid him $86000 in cash and I paid about $18000 for the material. All together $104000
After he left, I have to deal with all the “touch up” plus. I spent $5000 to redo three showers because they were done wrong and leaking water through the ceiling, $7000 to do about 2/3 of the “touch up”, $1000 to connect the outside HVAC that were forgotten to connect, $10000 for the flooring. There are also estimates for jobs that were included into the project and were not done yet: fixing the roof leak $4000, fixing existing and installing new railings $1200, redoing of the breaker box and other electrical issues $2750, $400 shower doors installation, and the rest of “touch up” $2000. It all together is $29750
Unfortunately the city inspector overlooked many problems and signed the final inspection before lots of things were completed.
The contractor got a lawyer and requesting me to pay him $25000. The court date is 05/16.
Will be I able to defend myself without hiring a lawyer ($5000 flat rate)? Will it help if I hire an independent inspector to prove my point?
Contractor is Taking Me to Court. Will Be I Able to Defend Myself
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