Hey everyone, I just bought my first single family rental a few months back and am currently in the middle of rehabbing the property. I can't do anything myself besides paint, so I hired a contractor because my real estate agent recommended that he could do alot of things and would be cheap. I realize now that I should have 1) signed a contract with the company with expected dates and payments as things got done and 2) figured out beforehand if this company is even competent. My business partner and I paid them $12,750 right after the roof was done, and this was for the total roof replacement plus half of the rest of the project. We still owe them about 8,000 dollars for the rest of the work. We also paid them 2,600 for the cost of the flooring, which they have mostly completed. 

However, the boss is never there working and only assigns guys that can't do anything right to work on the job. They work for 3 or 4 hours a day if they even show up at all. The other day they rehung a cabinet upside down and with drywall that was one inch back from the rest of the wall. They almost flooded the entire ceiling the first day because they couldn't even figure out how to turn the water all the way off.

I am looking for an answer on how I can deal with this. Since I did not sign an actual contract, is there nothing I can do? Should I fire them? They are just way too slow, unprofessional, and completely incompetent, and it is extremely hard to deal with them. They say one thing and do another. I am so angry that we gave them over 15 thousand dollars to do only half that amount of work up until this point. Any advice would be appreciated greatly.

Thanks