I recently completed two projects for a tenant of a building in Philadelphia. The tenant was satisfied with the completed projects but was not satisfied with the behavior of one of my subcontractors. The tenant is demanding an unreasonable discount for the one job that was performed by the subcontractor mentioned. I offered the tenant a $200 discount for her troubles, but she has demanded a discount in excess of $500. The original cost of that project was approximately $2200. I have not had any contact with the building owner....Read More
I have purchased materials and supplies on personal and business credit cards plus I took out a loan for 20K to invest into the business while I was working for the General Contractor that has either not paid me at all for the work or paid me minimally through charge-backs and I would like to know how I can add interest for every day or every month that I have still not gotten paid by them. Thank you...Read More
Just sent an intent to file lein paper work... i got a response saying "go to arbitration " So how does that get set up? Did levelset coordinate that or is that left for me to figure out? Or do i not even respond? And just let the lein take effect in 10 days? Any help would be great thanks!...Read More
I have a plumber who is sending me an invoice for a service charge of 112$. We originally called the plumber told them our hot water heater had gone out no mention of a service quote was discussed. Within 40 min a plumber showed up, said "yes yo do need a hot water heater" I already had known this and that was the reason for the original call. The plumber did not have a hot water heater that day and told me it would be a couple days befor the work could be done. I had already found another plumber to do the job so told him no thankyou. No paperwork was ever signed and no payment was ever discussed. They are now invoiceing me for 112$ for something they never did. They did not quote a problem nor do any work. When I called regarding the invoice they told me they have a contract with a name scribbled which I never signed. They said if we dont pay they will recruit a 1.5% interest and put a mechanics lein on the house. What are my options?...Read More
Thank you for answering my question. I hired a contractor for 2 specific contracts on a home renovation to be done simultaneously. I paid the down payments in May but then had to request the contract be put on hold for 3 weeks before starting the work. After begging them, it wasn't until late September that they started work on my home and it was like pulling teeth to get them there ( constant begging as to when they would begin), it took almost 2 months to demo 2 small partition walls (only one or two day laborers would show up). another month before they started framing a new partition wall and then another month to start a pretty basic plumbing/ electrical package. All along the way I was given excuses for delays from lack of man power to "my guy is in the hospital) and that supplies were ordered and they are delayed (they were never ordered). They would eventually hit contract milestones that required me to write them checks ( which I did) but then would disappear for another month as described above. Eventually they got to the point of digging and exposing my foundation for a new addition. Not only was the excavation done wrong ( they failed to dig to the correct depth and we failed the inspection) They did not remove the concrete ruble from the site as agreed upon, leaving my property a mess. They then disappeared for 2 1/2 months and left my original foundation exposed to a couple of freeze/thaw cycles. I soon realized that they were sending people to work just enough to get to the next milestone to demand a check and the reason for the delays was due to them bouncing checks to subcontractors and the subcontractors wouldn't work with them anymore and they had burnt so many bridges that they couldn't get anyone to work for them) . It was at this point that i had enough and i fired them and went with another contractor I had on site working another job for me and everything is running smoothly. The original contractor is now threatening me with a mechanics lien because he's out of pocket (as he states) above and beyond what I paid him (over $30k). The work done? - demo of 2 partition walls, framing a bathroom, plumbing (which had to be ripped out because it was wrong) and rough electrical (which had to be ripped out because it was wrong), and digging a footing trench ( which had to be re-dug because it was wrong and failed inspection). Bottom line is the work done ( in my eyes) wasn't even close to the $30k spent. That's the background, my questions is/are the following: Can a contractor legally file a mechanics lien for the work completed even when i paid him? I thought the mechanics lien was for doing/completing work and not getting paid. What value would the contractor's lien rights be based on? - only on the work/supplies completed to the date of firing ( he's claiming yes, I paid him $30k but he's out $38k, so I owe him another $8k) would the lien be for $8k? or the full contract price?- which he never did the work. Does it matter that they broke the contract at all? Does it matter that after hiring a competent contractor, they had to rip out all the work because it was wrong?...Read More
I have a mechanics lien against my house. Long story short…. The contractor that was redoing my basement. He breached the contract by stealing from my house so i told him not to come back. The project wasn’t completed and the money that I owed him would reflect that so thats why I didn’t pay him. What are my options? What happens next if I pay off the lien. Will the lien holder have to do retract the lien or would it be me. Also what would be the lien holder’s next step be if i dont pay the lien. What he have to take me to court and if he does will it cost me anything? Thank you in advance for your help....Read More
I received and lean for work done on a three level three unit apartment building and I live in one of the units the lien is an intent to lean it was sent registered mail but I never signed it because it was just put through the door. I did respond to the letter with the text to the contractor stating he sent me a bill a final bill and it did not show eight payments since last April. I am willing to pay the entire amount which dramatically exceeded the original budget due to construction problems such as plumbing and electrical that were not anticipated and four month delay in completing the project because of covid supply line delays. I cannot refinance this property that has significant equity with a lien. I don't even know if his payments would reconcile with my Banks payments. How could you assist me...Read More
I received an invoice for work that I had completed in my townhouse. The job was said to be completed, However, when I went to check, not everything was done. He had to come back to finish the job over several more days. He is charging me additionally for finishing the job and is threatening a mechanics lien if I don't pay. ...Read More
A kitchen company never finished there work and disappeared for almost 4 months then came back for one day and had a lawyer threaten to file a lien now on November first filed and I did not get the notice till the 12th I don’t have the money to hire a lawyer to fight this but there work was crap and now I’m one day away from the 20th and I have to respond by then and I don’t know how to do that I been looking up rocket lawyer but it hard I don’t know what to do we would definitely win if we knew how to fight this. But I don’t want to get a lien for something I didn’t do this was there fault not mine...Read More
two questions:
1. If a property is owned by more than one owner, but the construction contract was entered into by only one owner who owns only a minority fractional share of the property as a tenant in common, without the joinder or approval of the other owners, may I place a lien against the whole property or only the fractional share of the one contracting owner?
2. If I serve a non-contracting owner of the property with notice of my lien, but do not serve the contracting owner, is that adequate service of notice of the lien?...Read More
I am a general contractor in Bedford County Pa. I need to file a mechanics lien against a homeowner that has refused to pay the final invoice of $46,791.00 . Can I place the lien against a property that the owner currently has up for sale or does it have to be on the property that the work was done to?...Read More
Our company has a contract with a homeowner is Pennsylvania and we ordered custom materials for her project. She placed a 10% deposit down upon signing the contract and we ordered the materials. Months later she now wants to cancel the project and forfeit her deposit. Our custom materials and expenses exceed the deposit and we would like to place a lien on the property. I know we can do this for custom materials for a project in other states (without it being installed on the property), in Pennsylvania are we able to place a lien for custom materials? ...Read More
I just filed a mechanics lien through levelset and want to know what my next steps should be. This is my first time doing any of this and also my first time having a client do anything of this sort. ...Read More
B & B submitted a mechanics lien and received a letter back basically saying that what we submitted is not valid. I'd like to review the letter that we received to make sure that we do not need to release our lien....Read More
I have 7 job invoices ranging from 91 days to 302 days past the invoice date/job date. The total is $50,976.79 past due. I know PA has a 6 months for filing a lien, but I noticed it is singular job based. Do I have to do job by job (invoice by invoice) or is there a way to do a bulk lien?...Read More