For some background information, I am a homeowner of a three family home. The basement apartment is vacant as we have been wanting to update it for quite sometime. In addition the first floor apartment just recently became vacant so I thought it would be a great time to update the first floor apartment as it draws in the most revenue. In addition since no one else will be living in the house besides my family in the 2nd floor apartment it would be a perfect time to upgrade the 1st floor apartment as construction noise will not disturb the tenants.
We have been screwed over by contractors before so we went what we thought was the safe route this time and found a contractor on a verified website (home advisor or similar). Once we were able to find one we told him we would like to do the first floor apartment upgrade piece by piece. The reason for this was to not cause any confusion on what is currently being worked on and what is currently owed for that work. We agreed to start on the bathroom first. This would be a total remodel of the bathroom so it was to be completely gutted.
The contractor successfully gutted the whole bathroom and the next step was to frame out the walls to add in the sheet rock and a place for the for the shower stall/tube. This is where the problems started to come in. We ordered the shower/tube and the contractor said he had the measurements to frame out the space to put it in. It turned out when it arrived it did not fit because he measured it wrong. We did not receive a deduction on the bill because of his mistake for this. I thought we would give him the benefit of the doubt in this situation so we did not make a big deal about it.
For the next step I told him not to put up the sheet rock yet because I wanted to inspect how they framed the bathroom window to make sure it was okay. Without asking me he put up all of the sheet rock in the bathroom and also painted it with a color we previously picked out. Upon further inspection I saw that there were gaps in between the sheet rock and they were filled in with puddy. The puddy was sanded poorly and quickly painted over to try to cover up the imperfections. In addition to this he did not use a paint premier, in which I called him out on and he did it over again added a primer and then the regular paint, also no deduction on the bill for this.
Next he installed the floor of the bathroom and put in the tiles we picked out horizontally instead of vertically like we wanted. He never asked us which way we wanted the flooring to be installed either. He also installed the vanity and painted around it not behind it and just covered the unpainted area by the vanity.
The main contractor which we hired brought in at least three or four different people to help in do different tasks. At this time I started to really sense things were not going in the right direction. I’m not sure if this has any importance to my situation.
The next stage of the agreement was for him to work on parts of the kitchen. He demoed the whole kitchen and floor and it went fine. We found out we needed a new window for the kitchen so we ordered one from Home depot. When it arrived I left it in the apartment and he installed it without my agreement, we never talked about it. He installed it completely wrong and it has to be totally reframed as it does not even open now. This was according to a building inspector that came by and works for the city. This window was very expensive and I can only assume now that the bathroom window also has to get reframed.
I wrote a check to the contractor for $5,000 for the remaining balance in addition to another previous to checks for about $6,000 combined, so a total of $11,000 at this point.
After the building inspect confirmed to me that the window was completely put in wrong I decided to go to the bank and cancel the check so he could not cash it.
Now I recently received a summons to small claims court in December. In addition to this I received a restraining order in which they want me to attend a hearing next week.
Additional Information:
The contractor refused to meet with the building inspector
The contractor had me write the three checks, one to him personally, the other two to two different companies of which he said he owned
He offered is offering no warranty on any of his work
The work he did does not meet building code
Questions & Concerns:
I’m not sure if this is a restraining order between me and him or if its whether or not I can enter my house?
What should I do about the two windows?
What if the windows fall out and I receive no warranty?
How should I proceed with small claims court as I think people represent themselves? I’ve never been in this situation before
Can I somehow get my money back from time lost for renting the apartment because of his wrong doings?
Why is he bring me to court when it obvious that he messed up on a lot?
Is the restraining order being used to exploit some type of loophole because I don’t understand the reason behind it
Do I need a lawyer for this? I really don’t want to lose all of this money again.
Any addition information is extremely appreciated and I will be forever grateful for it.
Submitted October 21, 2017 at 01:59AM by Doeb1 http://ift.tt/2hV8hEA
