My contractor did not pay final bill on quartz. Mechanics lien?
I hired a contractor last year to do a kitchen remodel including him sub contracting another provider for counters. He paid the down payment for the counters but did not pay the final bill of $1300. I have since sold the home and I just got notification 15 months later that he did not pay and they are requesting payment or they will file a lien on my property (again that I no longer own). What are my options here? What should I do or who should I contact? The property is in Iowa and the contractors are Nebraska based. I have documentation of my payments to the contractor and the contract with the quartz provider that he was to sign but I also signed at the end. I don't know if he actually ever signed the contract.
I would highly recommend consulting an attorney. I am not sure what recourse options you have but my thoughts are to direct the sub go after the GC.
Definitely update us on what ended up happening!
-
Real Estate Agent Nebraska (#20210707)
- 402-968-3926
- [email protected]
This is not legal advice: I agree with @Tanner Sherman but a quick Google search suggests that in Iowa a contractor only has 90 days to file a mechanics lien. This is a sucky situation and I would seek legal council but I hope that gives you a sliver of solace.
Best wishes!
They had 90 days to file a mechanics lien in Iowa from the last day of labor or delivery of materials. That time frame is in the past.
Is the contractor's license still active? Is the contractor in business? Look on Nebraska contractor license board and secretary of state. Provide that information to the quartz company in an email. Go find all your emails and bills and make copies and save in the cloud.
Seems like the quartz company and the contractor were bad at book keeping.
My gut is they might try small claims against you, which you do not need an attorney but you need to prove you paid the contractor and any written discussions.
First, in the scheme of things, this isn't a lot of money. They aren't going to work hard to collect and you don't want to spend a lot of money either.
Second, you met your contractual obligations and can prove that you did. This is a disagreement between your contractor and his sub. (Note: When we make final pay we get a lien release from our contractors that indicates they paid all their subs.) Because non-payment of subs is a problem in the industry, most states allow for a mechanics lien on the property for unpaid subcontracting work. However, since you no longer own the property, what risk do you really have?
Here is what I would do. Call your contractor and let him know that his sub is reaching out to you. If he has any ethics, he will either pay the bill or call the sub to work out whatever disagreement they have. Next I would call the subcontractor. Let them know you paid the contractor in full and just talked to him and asked him to solve the problem. I would also mention that you have sold the property. You can do this as a favor to the sub so they don't waste their time and money doing this. Then I would sit and wait. If it seems like it isn't going away, then I would talk to an attorney.
Thanks all! So I did reach out to the general contractor and he assured me that it was just a mistake and that he was going to pay the outstanding balance. The sub contractor gave me 45 days to try and get the GC to resolve this and I was very hopeful but at the end of the 45 days the GC failed to respond to the Sub and he never paid the balance. So I reached out the sub in an attempt to try and resolve the issue between us to avoid causing more hassle if they placed a lien on the new homeowners and they only asked me to prove my payments to the GC and I never heard back from them.
My intention was to try and "settle" the balance but I wasn't going to be the first to start negotiations. I assume that I interpreted the law correct that the Sub can only place a lien on the property for funds that were not paid in full to the GC so they are pursuing the balance another way or writing it off.
I believe if they did pursue the lien, it would expire drop off July 2023 so as long as the new homeowners don't try to refinance or sell before then and I would reach out to them to explain the situation. Moving forward, I'll deal with material contractors myself to avoid this situation again.
And the GC doesn't have a current LLC in NE and I can't find anything for him being licensed in IA. He seems to have dropped off.