Anyone ever gone down this road here? You hire a painter to paint a room -- he subcontracts to some random idiot who does an absurdly shitty job. You refuse to pay until the work is fixed -- contractor refuses.

How does this story play out in ffx county?

Did you have a contract?

he could put a mechanical lean on your house.

Or a lien.

ok so how does the lien process play out? he files a paper, i dispute it because the work quality is horrible. what then?

no contract. it's a $900 job.

You can ignore it for years but will bite you in the ass when you try to sell your house. I would first find out if he is a licenced contractor. If not their is nothing he can do. Cost a few grand in legal fees to fight a mechanical "lien." It's one of those things you need a lawyer to fight it. Also one can drag out a lien for a long time if he wants to be a real pain in the ass

Depending on his business acumen he can file a lien, take you to small claims court or slash your tires in the middle of the night. If you go to court he will say that you are super particular and you will have to provide experts to prove the job is not done to industry standards. Does he have a business licence, contractors license or insurance? Did you hire the cheapest bidder on your project? You should have probably stopped him as soon as you realized he was doing an unacceptable job. I can't belive that we are talking about a lot of money since it was only a room, pay him and consider it a lesson learned. Next time ask for recommendations from friends and neighbors or hire a well established company. You will certaily pay more, but you will at least be getting proffesional painters run by a proffesional business.

did all that stuff. he was highly recommended from trusted references and wasn't anything near the cheapest bid. for whatever reason he just subbed the work out to some random mexican who doesn't speak a word of english and who doesn't care about his work.

i guess i went wrong by not entering into a contract and specifying that he not sub out the work.

reason it's so expensive is that it's a garage that needed some wall repair before painting.

contact the consumer dept of FFX county government. If you can give documentation of sorry work, they might help you. Not sure they can help you without a contract. But, then, I don't see how they can put a lien on the house without one either.

FFX County helped me a few years ago with Cox. I had fought with them for months over intermittent internet and got the run around. Once I called FFX county it was fixed in two days. I did have documentation.

Go to Fairfax County website and look at consumer complaints. The contact information should be there.

$900 is expensive. Clearly you haven't been in Fairfax County long enough.

You should have not allowed the illegal spic in your house ..It's your fault. next time try picking up a paint brush and roller. fucking asshole.

consumer Wrote:
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> contact the consumer dept of FFX county
> government. If you can give documentation of
> sorry work, they might help you. Not sure they can
> help you without a contract. But, then, I don't
> see how they can put a lien on the house without
> one either.
>
> FFX County helped me a few years ago with Cox. I
> had fought with them for months over intermittent
> internet and got the run around. Once I called
> FFX county it was fixed in two days. I did have
> documentation.
>
> Go to Fairfax County website and look at consumer
> complaints. The contact information should be
> there.
I don't know how big a business this painter has, but more than likely he does not have a FFx business license (required by all those who do any business in the county). So I doubt that the consumer department can do any good if they are even able to contact him. Usually these guys take your check to the bank and cash it, pay their guys $9/hour, pocket the rest and avoid paying any sort of tax. This also allows them to avoid any sort of liablity or workman's comp insurance since they are not earning any offical income.

Pay the contractor and chalk it up to educational expense. You should have known better. 900 bucks is a car payment, cough it up and get on with your life.

This is easy. Pay him since you did a shitty job yourself in hiring him. Was he a solid referral? Did you call his recent customers? Did you get a copy of his contractors license? Did you see his workman comp policy? Did you sign a proposal outlining the work to be performed, start time, finish time, quality of materials?
Why are you now surprised that you got ripped off?

pay him, you fucked up. i'll bet you drive a BMW..fuck face.

contractor Wrote:
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> Pay the contractor and chalk it up to educational
> expense. You should have known better. 900 bucks
> is a car payment, cough it up and get on with your
> life.


Same thing happened to my neighbor, some spanish guy showed up a few times and made a mess, even tearing off a piece of his aluminum siding, my neighbor got so pissed he went out and pushed the guy off a ladder and almost got arrested.

If you didn't sign a paper contract, he's going to have a tough row to hoe in obtaining a mechanics (not mechanical) lien against your property. The old lawyer's joke is that a verbal contract is worth the paper it's printed on. I doubt he's going to hire a lawyer, because the lawyer will charge him $800 or more just to walk into court and absent a very narrow set of circumstances, he can't recover the fees he pays to his attorney.

From http://consumerlawinvirginia.com/2011/09/25/when-are-attorney%E2%80%99s-fees-recoverable-in-litigation/:

In Virginia, the prevailing party in an action is not entitled to recover attorneys’ fees absent fraud, a specific statutory authority granting attorneys’ fees, or a contractual provision providing for such an award. This is the “American Plan,” every party pays her own lawyer.

He'll likely try and get you to sign something saying you owe him the money or get you to admit on the telephone that you agreed to having him do the work with him recording the conversation.

He may take you to small claims court, in which case you can't lie (since you're under oath) and say he didn't do the work, but you can provide evidence that the work done was shoddy and substandard. He'll also have to prove how much the job cost him, and if he subbed out the work and didn't keep any records, he can't prove how much he paid the sub.

Since he's not going to redo the work himself, I'd negotiate a settlement with him and have him sign a paper that he's giving up all future claims against you in exchange for the settlement. I'd start with his material costs and demand he show you reciepts for the material. If he didn't save them, tough shitski for him. Assume he used the cheapest paint he could and get an estimate on how much that paint would have cost him.

The point of negotiating a settlement is to make you both equally unhappy, which is always the sign of a sucessful mediation.

The op is mucho loco hombre. My cousin paint his house real nice but this hombre is not happy , he tries to take advantages of of poor hardworker painter. You can no trust americans. Me cousin is no violent man he will no light house on fire, he no do nothing illegal other than stay long after work visa is expire. OP is very lucky. Me and me cousin still love this country and we also like to eat at glory days. Thank you alls for leting us ins your countrie.

It depends on how much aggravation you are willing to go through. If you haven't already done so, make sure you take pictures. Personally, I'd probably force him to take me to small claims court. I doubt he brings a lawyer - it's not worth it. So then it's you against him, and you have evidence. But if he's hiring illegals, he's probably playing pretty loose with the rules, and he may not want to bring that to the attention of the court.

I hired a painter once that I did not vett adequately. He actually painted around furniture and appliances, rather than move them. I had too much on my plate at the time to deal with it so I paid, but it was a lesson learned. Always have a contract, and follow up, if needed, with emails or other written documentation.

2 cents Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It depends on how much aggravation you are willing
> to go through. If you haven't already done so,
> make sure you take pictures. Personally, I'd
> probably force him to take me to small claims
> court. I doubt he brings a lawyer - it's not worth
> it. So then it's you against him, and you have
> evidence. But if he's hiring illegals, he's
> probably playing pretty loose with the rules, and
> he may not want to bring that to the attention of
> the court.
>
> I hired a painter once that I did not vett
> adequately. He actually painted around furniture
> and appliances, rather than move them. I had too
> much on my plate at the time to deal with it so I
> paid, but it was a lesson learned. Always have a
> contract, and follow up, if needed, with emails or
> other written documentation.


You need to be careful with these guys, they do not play by our rules. Bad things can happen if you do not pay them.

Pay the $900 or spend the $900 later on a security system, cameras, and 4 new tires.

He can't bring a lawyer to small claims court...

"A corporate or partnership plaintiff or defendant may be represented by an owner, a general partner, an officer or an employee of that corporation or partnership. An attorney may serve in this capacity if he is appearing pro se, but he may not serve in a
representative capacity “unless he is doing so for the sole purpose of removing the case to the general district court.”

Here is the whole process:

http://www.courts.state.va.us/resources/small_claims_court_procedures.pdf

You can't take him to small claims unless you have monetary damages. You haven't paid him from what I see so unless something was done that has to be repaired and increases your expenditure.

This is the va code for liens

http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+TOC43000000001000000000000

thanks for the suggestions.

Curmudgeon Wrote:
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> thanks for the suggestions.

I imagine you could file an injunction against the lien. You'd have to prove why it is wrongful.

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