Let's Talk about Screw-ups! Part 2

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Hello everyone, not long ago I was reading a BP forum about screw ups and it was both entertaining and learning. I hate to say but one of the best ways to improve one's knowledge is by learning from other people's mistake. I'm located in the NYC market which has many screw up stories and I happen to make my share in the last 4 years. Here is my recent mistake and hope we could keep this trend going so we could learn not only the good but the bad experience as well. I was rehabbing my flip property with my crew. I sub-contract an electrician to wire the whole house and upgrade the electrical meter. We sign a contract with his LLC company name and everything seem to be in order. 2 months later and the job was never finish, he had hire a street worker that knows basic electrical which I had to help him wire the whole house but he himself never showed up. He didn't have a license to pull permits for the upgrade meter so he took the rest of the money $5000 and left. I file a civil suit which took 8 months just to have a court date and of course I won BUT now I find out that his company LLC had dissolve 3 years ago so since the checks were written to his company name, I can't sue him personally. LESSON: don't pay too much upfront and always check the company and license information.

[James Blalock]

How do you check on the legitimacy of an LLC?

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James Blalock online at NY state dot gov

[Chin P.]

I'd check with an attorney that handles claims like this. If you're saying that the company was dissolved before the contract was executed I'd check into the possibility of a fraud claim with an attorney.

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Chin P. I had send the judgement paper to a collection agency, before I proceed to take the fraud claim action I wanted to see if they are able to recover some of my money, which takes 60-90 days to have an update.
I don't want to get my hopes up on this and was preparing for the worse.

[Derrick W.]

here is my most recent. Renter calls and the gas oven is not working.  I call a few repair companies and get a "worse case senario" of 250$.  A new oven cost 350$ so I decide to go with the new purchase. I pick it up, place it in the back of the truck and ratchet strap it in place.  5 min later while driving down a straight, smooth road the oven (still strapped in) falls over and the glass bust out of the door. The glass has to be ordered and can take up to 8 days to get here. So now I have a very happy repair man that charged 200$ to fix the origional oven. 120$ to replace glass on the new oven and you add in the 350$ for the new stove and that's 670$ in repairs on a house that brings 650$ a month. 

Lessons learned. 

1. Pay for the repairs. 

2. Pay for the delivery/install. 

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Derrick Williams ouch, I remember I had to transport a fridge from my rental property so I could sell it because they already had one. Well during transport in a van, the door from the fridge receive 3 dents and you already know how ugly a fridge with dents could look like. Sold it for 1/4 of the price, cosmetics plays a big part on value with a fridge, my lesson use a moving cloth to cover it while transporting.

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This is why I will only work with contractors that are willing to work on a draw schedule with the money coming after an inspection of the work has been completed.

[Thomas S.]

I bought a used stove, glass top, good price, excellent condition, almost new, $150. Installed in flip house, circuit board flakey, cant fix board, replacement board $175. No longer a great deal.

I hate all new fangled electronic crap. Not sure what lesson I learned as flakey board did not reveal itself for several days after install. Obviously seller knew the board was flakey.

F.I.S.H.  

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Greg S. I feel your pain, that would had given me so much stress that I would had taken a bat a finish the job on destructive of the stove glass top. (With safety gear on)

[David Faulkner]

Speaking of electrical, I had about 6 service calls on a rental about the electric heat and AC ... they messed with the unit all kinds of ways but never fixed it. Tenant was great, but moved out ... come to find out that in all the time her and her infant son lived there the AC and heat never worked, so they went through a Phoenix summer with no AC and my PM seemed surprised. Turns out the panel was old and not wired properly. Same lousy PM sent several electricians out to bid a new panel on the now vacant house. The one we went with didn't pull permits like they said they would. I found out because apparently the other electrician wasn't happy that I didn't pick his stupid high bid, so he turned us into the city which promptly cut power and wouldn't turn it back on until we had the job inspected and permitted. Of course, the job was not to code. So now we have a vacant house with no power in the prime spring rental season. Another few months I independently found a new PM and new PM found a good electrician to redo the  job. By this time we missed our rental window so we had to lower rent to get it rented. Lessons learned:

1)Fire a non performing PM early and often ... they NEVER get better.

2)Don't buy out of state where you can't verify issues & solutions or easily take control to straighten out a mess if need be.

3)Repeated visits for what seems like the same or similar issue are a red flag which should NOT be ignored.

4)Use licensed, bonded electricians who pull permits.

5)Trust but verify.

6)Be careful about who even bids your jobs.

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David Faulkner great experience which is one of the reasons I become a contractor to pull my own permits. It's unfortunate that your high bid electrician had to call the city and that always happens with contractors bidding here in NYC