After I read my response, I realized how strongly I felt about helping to save you from the building process because, unfortunately, the deck is SO stacked against you from the start. I figured you might write off my response as someone who’s been burned too many times, but I’m glad you got it. I wish I could encourage you to go for it instead of warning you about all the risks. I think you’ll be happier finding other creative outlets…again, maybe finding a minor “fixer upper” would be just as fulfilling and less stressful.
UCGal,
My heart goes out to you with the whole court process…during a home that we built back east in the 80’s (during a different economic downturn), we had a contractor use our payments for other purposes, and all of a sudden, we had liens put against the house by the plumber, electrician, tile guy and others. We were dragged into court by these subs and had to prove to a judge that the money we paid to the general contractor was supposed to be earmarked for the subs who had placed liens against us. It was a huge, expensive nightmare and not only were we pissed off at the contractor, but we had tremendous guilt about how he had screwed his subs on our job, and we ended up trying to split the difference with them, basically double-paying for those trades just to keep food on their tables. In the end, we were out by almost $50,000 and it hurt, especially because we were younger then and had way less in the bank. You know what they say about what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger…? Fortunately, our relationship survived, although I do admit that there was some finger pointing, blame and all-around bad feeelings in the air for quite awhile.
That was our first major lesson learned (and part of the reason for our cynical attitude). It’s crazy that somehow, through various circumstances/moves, we undertook the building process several more times, but after that first time, we’ve been extremely careful about getting lien releases from all subs and making sure that the work is done to high standards before paying anyone. Still, as you’ve found, you can never be 100% immune to anyone dragging you into court and having to defend yourself (especially in these desperate economic times). Unfortunately, many times the homeowner, and also sometimes honest contractors/subs, get stuck.
Best of luck to you. Thanks for the good advice about striking the arbitration clause out of the contract…we did not do that in this last building project, but we’ll note that for the future (ooops, I forgot – note to self that there will be NO more building projects in our future). We’re done! Seriously, thanks for all your wise tips and all the best to you.
