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a bill for services not provided
galdon
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
might be a long story on this one.
about a year ago, a friend of mine's father passed away. she was living with him at the time and since the house was left to be split between her and her brother she had to move out, as her brother insisted on selling it and splitting the sale price.
her uncle apparently works in the field of home repair, and offered to inspect the house she was looking at. he said it looked ok, and just needed some work which he could do for her.
so, they come to an agreement that he would repair her house, and she would pay him $3,000 biweekly plus materials until he finished.
this was a bad idea. instead of working on her house at all quickly he dragged his heels hard, soaking up as much money as possible. he started spending more and more time on the phone talking to other clients while at her house, and eventually stopped coming at all.
the house was not only unfinished; but due to things being taken apart and a multitude of 'newly discovered' problems, the house is in almost worse shape than it was in to begin with.
we feel like he scammed her, and that he may have lied about the inspection to get her to buy the house due to it being a gold mine for him. she paid a bit over $26,000 in total.
we decided not to try going after a refund though, because it could have lead to a long legal battle and we are not sure if it is worth it.
Its been a few months since then, and her uncle this morning shows up unannounced to hand her a bill for another $5,000 for stuff he 'forgot to charge her' and says she has til the end of the week to pay him.
what would be the best course of action here? my first instinct says 'don't pay!' but I don't know what to suggest to her beyond that.
about a year ago, a friend of mine's father passed away. she was living with him at the time and since the house was left to be split between her and her brother she had to move out, as her brother insisted on selling it and splitting the sale price.
her uncle apparently works in the field of home repair, and offered to inspect the house she was looking at. he said it looked ok, and just needed some work which he could do for her.
so, they come to an agreement that he would repair her house, and she would pay him $3,000 biweekly plus materials until he finished.
this was a bad idea. instead of working on her house at all quickly he dragged his heels hard, soaking up as much money as possible. he started spending more and more time on the phone talking to other clients while at her house, and eventually stopped coming at all.
the house was not only unfinished; but due to things being taken apart and a multitude of 'newly discovered' problems, the house is in almost worse shape than it was in to begin with.
we feel like he scammed her, and that he may have lied about the inspection to get her to buy the house due to it being a gold mine for him. she paid a bit over $26,000 in total.
we decided not to try going after a refund though, because it could have lead to a long legal battle and we are not sure if it is worth it.
Its been a few months since then, and her uncle this morning shows up unannounced to hand her a bill for another $5,000 for stuff he 'forgot to charge her' and says she has til the end of the week to pay him.
what would be the best course of action here? my first instinct says 'don't pay!' but I don't know what to suggest to her beyond that.
Go in, get the girl, kill the dragon. What's so hard about that? ... Oh, so THAT'S what a dragon looks like.
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UChq0-eLNiMaJlIjqerf0v2A? <-- Game related youtube stuff
http://galdon.newgrounds.com/games/ <-- games I've made. (spoiler warning: They might suck!)
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UChq0-eLNiMaJlIjqerf0v2A? <-- Game related youtube stuff
http://galdon.newgrounds.com/games/ <-- games I've made. (spoiler warning: They might suck!)
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You won't hear about it again. Any contested claim is going to cost him at least what he says you owe anyway.
What you should do (assuming he's actually licensed for the work he was supposed to do) is report him to the appropriate licensing agency for the city/county/state he did the work in. But a lawyer isn't really going to be cost effective in assisting with this (and would probably tell you as much) unless he tries to sue her. As far as the amount she paid before, if she decides she doesn't want to pursue that then that's her call if she thinks it would be too much trouble. I'm simply addressing the concern over this most recent bill. It almost certainly will come to nothing because he's just hoping that someone that let him get away with it before will just play along and pay again. There is almost certainly no teeth to his threats, unless he's stunningly stupid.
If the bill is only for $5000, a lawyer could easily be more expensive than that. If your lawyer is billing you in 6 minute increments at $100 an hour, that's $10 everytime you send him an email and $20 when you receive a response longer than "ok".
By all means try and contact one if you feel like it, but it sounds like he's going to have a whale of a time justifying his invoice in small claims court.
That being said, someone else your friend might want to consult with is an experienced, licensed contractor or public appraiser. If you have "before" pictures of what you've got, show them to said person, and ask how much you should be reasonably charged for the work done. It sounds like she's going to need to hire another contractor, anyhow, so if he can do that as part of his estimate, that would be ideal.
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UChq0-eLNiMaJlIjqerf0v2A? <-- Game related youtube stuff
http://galdon.newgrounds.com/games/ <-- games I've made. (spoiler warning: They might suck!)
Hell, some of the time you can pay one just enough to write a nasty letter written in legalese and the other party will go "whoops wrong house" and go away.
And really, going to court would probably work out pretty heavily in her favor.