Ohio Notice of Furnishing Form (private projects)

Yes. Suppliers for home improvement contracts can file mechanic's liens. R.C. 1311.02.

Ordinarily, yes this would be considered a normal behavior to receive the contract amount and not perform any work. Two facts related to your situation make it unfortunately more normal than it should be (normal not necessarily meaning right or correct). 

First, ever since the great contractor shortage that began in 2020, homeowners have had to wait for months, or up to a year to get work done on their homes by reputable contractors. This has, unfortunately, led to a situation where the market is now saturated (maybe flooded) with scammers and contractors who don't have any experience in the industry. 

Second, the "restoration" segment of the industry has been hit the hardest by this situation. I believe this is because when billing the insurance company, these companies see (a) guaranteed payment with very few instances where the insurance company wouldn't make the payment, (b) homeowners who are inexperienced with construction and don't know which questions to ask regarding the contract, the work, the project, etc., and (c) very little risk that the company will be sued by any of these homeowners. 

So unfortunately for you, you are dealing with both of these situations, and what's more unfortunate is that the contractor has all the money (or at least most of it), which makes it even more difficult to get them to put in the work. Most home construction contracts, if they contain an up-front payment provision, only require a small portion up-front, and then require similar, smaller, progress payments throughout the project. 

These restoration contractors write atrocious, one-sided agreements that require you to pay all of the insurance money to them (despite their overall costs being 1/3 or 1/2 the insurance sum). They don't tell you the kind of materials you are getting. It's all a sick game where they try to perform the work as cheap as humanly possible, in order to maximize their profit, then rinse and repeat. 

I would write a letter to Ohio's Department of Insurance, as well as the Attorney General. I would send that same letter to your insurance company. Hopefully that helps move things along. 

If it doesn't, you may need to litigate, and unfortunately that is no easy (or cheap) task. The good news (if there is good news) is that the Ohio revised code contains provisions that provide help in this situation, including the Home Construction Service Suppliers Act. 

You are in an unenviable situation. It's terrible. You should have two goals. First, get the work done (and keep tabs on the work to make sure it is performed correctly and they don't just phone it in since they already have the money). In the alternative to the first goal, get the money back and use the insurance company to do that by threatening them due to their negligence in paying the money to the contractor directly, rather than you, the insured. 

Good luck, and again I am sorry you are in this mess. 

Ohio does not have any "preliminary notice" requirements for general contractors. As for the Notice of Commencement, either the owner or general contractor can prepare and record one. If you prepare one, you would need to identify the owner of the property being improved in the Notice of Commencement? If the Akron Pulic Schools owns the land, then it would be identified as the owner. If a private entity owns the land, then it would be identified.

Feel free to reach out directly to me with any questions.

Peter W. Hahn

Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff

(614) 223-9317

phahn@beneschlaw.com