Out of State Rehab: Contractor Ghosted Me

[Bonifacio Capuyan]

Hello Everyone, 

This has been a great resource for me as an amateur real estate investor. I'll jump right into my dilemma. I purchased a fixer upper in Dayton, OH (4bd 2ba) in April of 2017. I chose the same contractor that successfully finished a smaller rehab for me. Long story short he has been promising me for months that it'll be ready next week. I finally got a third party contractor to inspect the property and about 30% of the work has been done.  So in summary within 11 months only 30% of the work has been done. I already informed him to issue me a refund of the money not spent. I have not heard from him since (about 4 days).

What is my course of action? I am in CA and the property is in OH.

Any info would be appreciated.

[Christina Carey]

@Bonifacio Capuyan Please PM me with the contractor's name. I'll see if their reputation precedes them here locally.

Your odds of recourse on this situation are unfortunately very slim. I'm sure it's of little consolation to you at this point, but we've all been there. Assuming you have something in writing you can always sue, but in the end most of these guys are uncollectible, so you're just throwing more good money after bad.

Depending on what the property still needs, I can give you a few people who might be able to help you out on the work side at least, including a few reputable property managers.