Contractor Work

[*wildcats forever*]

(08-19-2016, 03:27 PM)JustWinBaby Wrote: I recently went through this.  Apparently it's fairly standard industry practice that jobs under $10k are paid on completion.  Jobs over that are paid as work progresses, with as much as half up front.

$2k up front doesn't sound at all unreasonable for pre-purchase of materials and essentially a "deposit" for reserving the workers.  Many contractors are small business owners, and can't afford to float thousands of dollars over weeks and months they potentially won't get paid for.

I'm no expert, that's just what I read from a bit of reading recently.  I'd say Wildcats has it mostly right with respect to a contract.

I assume the "lien waiver" from the bank is in case you have a dispute and withhold partial payment.  I have no experience with how easy that is to get, but I'd expect most contractors would resists and many may flat out refuse because it can be very difficult to collect even with a court judgement.

I have been in the industrial and heavy commercial construction industry working as a PM since the mid 80's, hence my emphasis on contracts and no advance payments. On my personal residential projects where a contractor requests advance $ for materials, I work with the suppliers using his materials list, and pay the supplier directly. Additionally I sometimes pay the contractor weekly for his labor costs, depending on his cash flow needs. I have deviated from this practice occasionally, but only after I've established a good working relationship with the contractor. Far too many residential contractors take advance money on one project to cover costs on another project, ending with someone getting burned eventually.