I am a homeowner and I had hired a friend who is a contractor to remodel our home . He has a business and was not able to work during the corona virus . We hired this contractor and gave him a deposit of 7,000 cash ( he had requested cash ) to buy supplies. and then he came back wanting more money saying he needed to pay bills and we gave him 14,000 . The original estimate / contract is only for between 18.400- 19.400 and we over paid him since the original estimate did not include framing out garage lien to and he do extra framing on a bathroom door. He has now quit working on the home and has threatened to put a mechanics lien unless we pay up another 5,000. We have no signed contract of any kind. We have been asking for a breakdown of the bill of what was paid and what he is claiming we still owe. We have no tax ID number and will give us a detailed bill of the supplies purchased. We have been receiving threatening texts . We have damage that this contractor has done to our home. We have given him a total of 21,000. What can I do in this case . Please help. We are trying to sell our home and he knows this and says he will file a lien unless we give him the money but, he says he is not providing us with a detailed bill. Bottom line is he was a friend that we trusted.
I am attorney Nick Podlaski of Podlaski LLP. I handle a significant number of residential improvement/new home construction matters. This sounds like probable violations of the Indiana Statutory Home Improvement Warranty Act, Home Improvement Contract Act, Deceptive Consumer Sales Act, Breach of Contract, Home Improvement Fraud etc. We need to timely notice the contractor to preserve your claims which could include attorney's fees and three times damages. Feel free to give my office a call at 260-782-1712 for a free 15 minute consultation to discuss this matter.