All Forum Posts by: Connor Castillo

Thank you Wayne! It is crazy to me that you cannot just call someone about a fraudulent lien. The fact that we have to bond it off is so disappointing to me. 
It feels like anyone can put a lien on anyone’s property and cause finical ruin without blinking an eye.

This could prevent us from selling our home. 

Any other advice? This GC also stole 3K from us and used it on another property.

Failed inspections 

We over paid he based on the contract. 

Hi everyone, we had a GC just file a lien after 130 days from last work. She made up a date even though we have proof that we terminated her contract 130 days ago. She is frustrated that we went with another contractor and we actually over paid her compared to our contract. She later just trying to get us, so she slammed us with an 80K lien a WEEK before closing. 
Is there anything we can immediately do because last work was past 90 days?

thank you! 

Hey Tony,

Thank you for the advice. My brother in law handled the contract, he is a commercial real estate project manager and this GC agreed to the overall cost of the project, and because of our time constraint we decided that was sufficient. That was a mistake, and poorly managed by us. Then we created a new contract with line items and had him agree in writing to what we owed him to date, line by line. This is when he realized that we had paid him over what he said we owed him. I agree that we could have been more concise with the line items, but should he not be aware of what we owe him or really any of his financials? Or how much he needs to finish a project. I think we have enough texts to file for harassment. As long as my family is safe I am okay losing the money, because it was my foolishness that lost it.  

Thank you for the reply Anthony. So, we have fired him. Now he is being aggressive and sending out threats towards us. He has mentioned knowing where we live, he mentioned using his gun on me, etc... 

We have all of the evidence that we have paid him. How do we avoid paying an attorney tons of money? So far, it sounds like if we take him to court we would have to pay more than we could win back? Our Decatur flip he owes us around 20K, and for my personal home he owes us about 9K.

I am also thinking I want to get a restraining order. I have three kids under 5, and I travel a lot. He knows that this is an easy way to scare me. 

Hi all,

I hope all is well! Long story short, my brother and I tried our hand at a flip, he is in commercial real estate, and we thought we could use that knowledge in residential. To some degree it was helpful, like for instance in creating contracts. However, our GC who is very bad at keep track of financials starting randomly asking for money without making any progress. At first we would create change orders and pay him to keep the project moving along. However, we looked at our agreed amount and confirmed with him how much we owed him to this point in the project, the next time he asked for money. He said we owed him 89K, he said to date we paid him 80K and he needs the other 9K ASAP. Well, we looked at our bank statements and we paid him 110K to date. 

Our GC lost his mind when we presented this evidence and the signed contract to him. Now he is threatening us and our families. He freaked out, made a bunch of what he calls "overages" and said if we do not pay him his money he will get it out of us one way or another. 

Also, the original way we found him was through Thumbtack. My wife and I found out we were expecting our next child and we wanted to turn our car port into a master bedroom. We wanted to put this project on hold until the flip was complete. Well, our GC texted me saying "I need $9,410 to buy the material for your house right now or the price will go up", I said "what are you talking about, what does this buy?" He said "Oh sorry man I just bought it I need that money ASAP, if I do not get it I will have to stop working on your flip" I asked for an invoice, he promised he would get it to me, it has been two months and I have seen nothing. 

Can anyone point me in the right direction for this? Not only is it getting scary for my family and I, but we have lost all of our money in this. I spoke to one lawyer and he said "you would pay me 29K before you ever saw it from this GC if you pursue it."

Is there any hope we could protect ourselves from this guy and maybe even get our money back?

Thank you for any responses!! 

Hi All,

I am looking go a bank that does 90% CLTV? I have found 85%, and I am starting to think that might be the best I can do.

Thank you,

Connor Castillo 

Hey All,

My brother and I bought a home in Decatur GA. The house is 800 sq ft and we are adding an addition to make it 1,700 sq feet. Long story short, we are very much tied up in the permitting process, waiting for the city to approve. We are now on month 2... On top of all of that, we are unfortunately working with hard money lenders who found a way to change the terms of our loan so we are paying steep interest on the entire loan, verses what we originally agreed to in paying for the interest on the money that is in use. 

All this being said, we are trying to find a way to close this sooner than later. I wanted to ask this community what sort of experience you have had with getting an architect to do a photorealistic rending of what the house will look like, and posting on various real estate platforms. 

Our goal would be to see if we could find buyers who could then come in and help with the final touches like furnishings etc... Also to see if we can close on the house sooner and get out of our hard money loan ASAP.

If someone could share their thoughts or experience with this, I would appreciate it so much! 

Thank you,

Connor Castillo 

Hey BP community, my partners and I are looking for an investment friendly bank in the surrounding Atlanta area. Any suggestions or recommendations would be very helpful!

Thank you,

Connor 

Hi all,

I wanted to see if you all could take a look on my first investment. I am already looking to invest again, so to know where I went wrong with this investment would be very helpful! I know I can get the rent up to $2,100/mo, and according Zillow the appreciation is increasing at 3% rate YOY (not sure how accurate Zillow is). Taxes are low, tenants pay all utilities. I never have vacancy, because I rent to students at the local college, and the rent from May to May, very little inventory in the area. Let me know what other details would be helpful?

Thank you,

Connor Castillo