All Forum Posts by: Katelynn Malivert

 I would have fired the contractor after the first couple times that he was slacking. You guys dragged it too much. But it is okay because it is your first deal. Find a new contractor. Look in real estate facebook groups from contractors, hvac, etc in your city. 

 Try to go to a real estate meet up or get in touch with a local investor who does a lot of deals with a specific contractor. At times referrals are hard to come by as people don't like sharing their ace in the hole but if you build enough relationships and provide some bigger investors enough value they will typically offer some introductions to their good contractors. 

I hired a contractor once who ghosted me, I called a larger investor he also worked for and let him know his contractor wasn't showing up. luckily for me the investor was a man of principle and he called the contractor and told him he would pull all of his work from him unless he showed up to my property. 

there is power in numbers ! 

I agree with @Chris Seveney. And potentially look into hiring a real estate attorney who can at first send a letter to the contractor threatening to file suit. If that doesn't get him moving then at least you have someone on retainer in case you need to follow through. 

Hi All,

My significant other and I recently bought a duplex with the intention of house hacking back in August of this year. We knew that the unit we were going to occupy needed significant renovations. After interviewing several contractors in our area, we thought we chose the best fit. We were terribly wrong. In the beginning, the contractor was very responsive and attentive to our requests. He said he was going to have our renovations done by the end of October 2023 (he started in Sept). Instead, he has been dragging his feet, dodging our calls and honestly has stopped working on the unit all together. I have already incrementally paid him a total of 36k (w/ credit card)  and I don’t know what to do. At this point, I’m considering disputing some of the payments with my bank as he has not provided the agreed upon services. We want to settle this amicably but at the moment this contractor isn’t picking up our calls. As you can imagine, we are racking up expenses as we have to rent elsewhere because the unit is uninhabitable. I greatly appreciate your advice. Thanks in advance!

when you stop the relationship, don't fall into the trap of letting him go back to work on the project. I have seen it a bunch where people try and get them to come back in hopes of things getting better instead of pulling the plug. The money you spent is a sunk cost.

A little good news here is that it sounds like you are in a spot where someone can pick up the job without having to undo things.

!st paragraph = good advice...
2nd paragraph: I don't know what the permit situation is in Ohio, but if there are open Permits, they will need to be closed out. Some Contractors do not want to take on the liability of someone else's work....

@Katelynn Malivert No you do not want to 'settle this amicably'. Someone just stole $36,000 from you. Get tough and I mean right now...

 I did a little surfing & it does seem OCILB doesn't have licensing requirements for residential. Other searches mentioned licensing at the municipal level & possible bonding requirements. If possible double check at your local level. If permits were pulled that may also have pertinence to your goals.

 Ohio consumer protection has a toll free #, it's on their website. Also make sure you keep every single bit of documentation. Moving forward no verbal communication just written. 

 All of the advice in the previous comments are great actionable items. Many people here in the forum want to help your investing be as successful as possible. 1 thing to note; if you post what state it's in, there may be more specific information we can provide. I'm sorry you're going through this, and really hope things work out for you