Never Give Your Contractor Their Final Payment Until You're Happy
It doesn't seem to happen as often as it used to, but
every once in a while I would get a call from a homeowner, about a job
that wasn't completed and they had given the contractor all of their
money. These are the horror stories that no one likes to hear about, but
I am here to reinforce the fact, that you should never give your
contractor their final payment until you're happy with the project and
its completed.
Some people have more of the victim personality than others and these
are the people that I often worry about. It might not sound nice, but
these are some of the worst people for someone like me to actually work
for. I try to avoid working for people that have been taken advantage of
by other contractors, simply because they assume that I'm going to do
the same thing.
I have seen other contractors and homeowners get talked into giving
their contractor, all of the money that is owed to them on the project,
with less than three quarters of the work actually done. These are
intelligent people by the way, it happens to the best of us and I really
don't know if it's ever going to stop.
Here's what normally happens once a contractor receives the rest of
their money. You're not in control of the project anymore, they are. If
your contractor was having problems before, what makes you think that
they're going to be solved now?
I don't care what they say or how they present any problem that they
possibly have, you must not ever give them all of their money. The
minute that you give them the rest of their money, there's a good chance
that you're not going to get your job completed and if you do it won't
be in a timely manner.
Most of these contractors that do business this way are extremely clever
and gifted manipulators. They will try to be your friends or make
friends with someone in your family. Sometimes they're trying to gather
more information about your weaknesses and fears, so that they can use
it against you for their personal gain some how.
Like I said before, the minute that you give them what they want,
they're going to be in control and who really knows what the final
outcome is actually going to be.