# guys i have a problem



## Advanced plum (Aug 10, 2012)

I bid a big septic job here local for a house that he rents to a house full of mexicans no disrespect to them but any way i bid this job for 8700 thats for the tank field and clearing work. So what i done is moved forward on clearing the ground it was a bill for 2000 and i paid this out of my pocket so after we was done with that i sent him a bill for the clearing and half on what the bid was. well he calls me today to tell me he isnt paying anything until we are done with the job completly. So i told him i wanted that money in a escrow account until we were done so i wouldnt get screw on the deal being he seems a little shadey now that were talking big money. But any way he has a lawyer to call me and tell me he is going to write up a contract for me to sign with 2 terms on it and that was the system is to be inspected by health dept which we always do this and second he want to fly down and look it over hiself and he is wanting grass to be planted and coming up before payment is made. Now there was nothing about no grass seed and all that crap he is adding in there. But as it is right now if i tell he to get lost i loss 2000 dollars on clearing work what would you guys do in this postion


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## AlbacoreShuffle (Aug 28, 2011)

what does your contract say ?


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## Fullmetal Frank (Jul 11, 2012)

Lawyer up, counter offer, use your signed estament as reference ....you got one of those right? Do you have anything that could be use as an agreement?


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## OldSchool (Jan 30, 2010)

So did you or didn't you have a contract to start out with??!

It doesn't seem like as now his lawyer is writing a contract out after the fact....

By the way you are going to lose your shirt on this job....

Now are you man enough to stick by your word and lose money or you going to run like a little girl


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## JoshJ (May 10, 2012)

No witness, no contract, no way to prove the original terms of your agreement? I don't know if there is much you can do. 

If it was me, I would probably wait until I saw the actual wording and details of the contract. Tell him that if he wants grass seeded and coming up, which he knows wasn't part of the deal, then he has to pay half up front. 

The problem with something like grass seeded and coming up, is who determines when it is all the way up? An independent party? Sounds like a real PITA developing if he is already throwing new conditions at you. If it wasn't for the 2K, I would say walk away. But you gotta decide if that money is worth the pain and suffering that you might go through to get it, not to mention the extra cost of grass seed, and waiting for your money.:furious: 

I think there are more negatives than positives for you doing the job, but I don't know your laws down there, being from Alberta myself.


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## deerslayer (Mar 29, 2012)

Can you afford a 2k loss?

If not ur screwed either way?

Can you afford to wait on the money?

If you can then I would do the job and the grass seed will be less than 2k!


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## Fullmetal Frank (Jul 11, 2012)

If you don't have a sign agreement then take the deal.


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## Gettinit (May 9, 2012)

Rye will grow about anywhere, it is cheap and it grows fast. It is cheap enough not to worry about, that's for sure. If it means finishing the job, do it. It can be a write off, right? It is better than the alternative. If he has a lawyer drawing up the contract, get your own. Get it settled quickly. I doubt you will have a better more binding contract when it is all said and done and your money should be guaranteed. I would make sure this POS knows that the first blade that pokes through that is that and no guarantees afterwards on the sowing.


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## drs (Jun 17, 2011)

Simple:

I need a downpayment for the job.

I think you jumped the gun a bit. I would stop all work until money is in hand. If they have a problem, call a inspector and a lawyer and have a group meeting explkaining what is going on here.

Have your Lawyer look into a Lein on the house if you do not get paid.

Good Luck


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## OldSchool (Jan 30, 2010)

You would think after 14 years of experience ... You would know better ...

This is a rookie mistake


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## ditchdigger (Aug 12, 2012)

Sounds like you are in a pickle . I would also back off the half up front I would try to get the 2000 for the clearing and then get him to sign a contract for the rest. If he won't pay the 2000 then you will be forced to take legal action. I'm not quite sure why you would have started such a big job without telling him up front you needed half the money after the clearing was done.


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## Tommy plumber (Feb 19, 2010)

Where are the tenants going to the bathroom in the meantime?........

This is exactly why lawyers write contracts. Contracts explicitly show who does what and when they do it. 

I don't want to preach, but you need to submit a proposal to a prospective customer, and after they sign it, it becomes a contract.

Most construction contracts stipulate a deposit up front, typically 25%-33%.


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## TallCoolOne (Dec 19, 2010)

Why would you the contractor let the customer write the contract?


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## Redwood (Sep 8, 2008)

Go over there and finish the clearing job... :thumbup:


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## HSI (Jun 3, 2011)

Take a sharpie marker and cross off what you don't like on the contract. You have every right to do that. Of course they could tell you no but with three or four items crossed off you may end up getting one or two items deleted. 
They usually have a bogus item or two that they are willing to let go. 
Demand 30% down and allow them to hold no more than 10 %. You may not get that either but you definently won't get anything if you don't ask.


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## plbgbiz (Aug 27, 2010)

Consider the $2K tuition and lesson learned. 

The huge red flag of a customer lawyering up at this stage clearly indicates a problem. He has suddenly found reason to distrust you or he is calculating a way to screw you. Either way...you lose.

No matter how benign the contract seems or even if he pays for the work you performed, walk away. This is going to be a problem customer.

Customers don't write contracts, CONTRACTors write contracts. If you failed to document the specific scope of work and get signatures authorizing that work AND the payment terms, then this really is your own doing.


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## Master Mark (Aug 14, 2009)

you might be screwed, and you might not...

throw a little grass seeed on the hole and make the ass-ho/e happy......if he expects you to sod it over
or tamp the thing down then you got troubles.....

either way YOU DO have the right to get a mechanics lien on the property when you are done......:yes::yes:


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## Advanced plum (Aug 10, 2012)

OldSchool said:


> You would think after 14 years of experience ... You would know better ...
> 
> This is a rookie mistake


You are right about that for sure this was really dumb of me to start anything before getting a contract signed. But i have done several smaller jobs for this guy and the health dept has been in a hurry to get this job done so i sent the parcel bill to him with the bid and it said on there what was to be done and after that he calls me saying he wasnt paying until the whole job was complete and thats were i got worryed and told him we needed a legal contract or the money needs to be put in a escroe account until done . And after that he told me to call his lawyer and i call and he tells me of all this grass seed crap and the home owner needs to inspect the job . Here in mo the health inspecters supervise these jobs all the way so im thinking this guy wants me to get the job done then either screw me completly or drag my money around for no telling when. Im haveing his laywer to send this contract to our attorney today so he can look it over and make corrections then we will see who signs then


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## Advanced plum (Aug 10, 2012)

Redwood said:


> Go over there and finish the clearing job... :thumbup:
> 
> Development property house demolition - YouTube


The clearing is complete and the hole is ready for a tank we are just trying to protect ourselfs this is the first time the man has acted shady with us but there is alot of money out there with this


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## Advanced plum (Aug 10, 2012)

Tommy plumber said:


> Where are the tenants going to the bathroom in the meantime?........
> 
> This is exactly why lawyers write contracts. Contracts explicitly show who does what and when they do it.
> 
> ...


There crap is running off the side of the hill right now this is why his butt is in trouble


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## Gettinit (May 9, 2012)

Advanced plum said:


> There crap is running off the side of the hill right now this is why his butt is in trouble


 Ah, he's trying to mitigate his losses with you first.


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## Advanced plum (Aug 10, 2012)

TallCoolOne said:


> Why would you the contractor let the customer write the contract?


This was all his doing without me knowing anything about it until i called him wanting to be paid for the clearing work that was complete


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## Advanced plum (Aug 10, 2012)

Gettinit said:


> Ah, he's trying to mitigate his losses with you first.


Ya im guessing so its sounding to me like hes wanting me to take the loss and he wins all the way but im not touching anything else until we have some thing in writeing with a laywer that way if this goes as bad as im thinking we get paid some how


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## plbgbiz (Aug 27, 2010)

Advanced plum said:


> There crap is running off the side of the hill right now this is why his butt is in trouble


You may have leverage after all. Your bill is pennies compared to an EPA fine.


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## Advanced plum (Aug 10, 2012)

plbgbiz said:


> You may have leverage after all. Your bill is pennies compared to an EPA fine.


You got that right !!! and beleave me they wont mess with him . And by the way i just went to my lawyers office and no contract yet so we called his lawyer and the lady told me that she fax a agrement to him instead of sending me something to look over . This is headed in a bad dirrection i can see it coming so i just told my lawyer while i was there to just make us up a contract and list in there what we were going to do and has them to sign it and if they dont want to do things our way we are pulling out and thats just the way its going to be . I would much rather loss 2000 than 10.000 wouldnt you agree The contract will state what all is to be done in a timely matter the system is to be inspected and passed by the state health dept and if grass seed is two be planted there will be a charge and payment is to be payed in full upon completion of work above Does this sound ok or would you ad something


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## Gettinit (May 9, 2012)

I would mention "back to grade plus/minus (however many inches you are comfortable with)".


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## ditchdigger (Aug 12, 2012)

plbgbiz said:


> Consider the $2K tuition and lesson learned.
> 
> The huge red flag of a customer lawyering up at this stage clearly indicates a problem. He has suddenly found reason to distrust you or he is calculating a way to screw you. Either way...you lose.
> 
> ...


I think you are dead on with the distrust statement . The guy saw a bill for 6,350$ and knew that much work had not been completed so he thought the plumber was getting to far ahead of him.


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## HSI (Jun 3, 2011)

Let them tack on all sorts of stuff and raise your price accordingly. But they pay as phase is completed with a small percent held in retention. Doubt they can find another contractor that will jump into it for less


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## Advanced plum (Aug 10, 2012)

HSI said:


> Let them tack on all sorts of stuff and raise your price accordingly. But they pay as phase is completed with a small percent held in retention. Doubt they can find another contractor that will jump into it for less


Ok guys just got back from the law office and my attorney told me that i sounded a little shady to him as well but the contract is made and sent to his so we will see what happens in a couple days . So there shouldnt be any more problems and if there is we are pulling out and i will pay the attorney to sue him for the 2000 owed for the clearing work that was done im going to post some pictures of the job sit under the picture forum if i can get the to down load off my phone so check them out might give you some idea of what we have going on over there and thanks to all of you for the advice


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## advanced (Feb 18, 2012)

Here is the picture that I have so far


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## advanced (Feb 18, 2012)

This is all I have so far and sorry for the picture of us grants home in st Louis I had to add that in there. Lol


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## OldSchool (Jan 30, 2010)

From the looks of the pictures I would have made him pay up front


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## ILPlumber (Jun 17, 2008)

That cost 2 grand. Wow.....

Nobody cares that this was sent from my droid using. Plumbing Zone


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## robwilliams (May 6, 2011)

Given the condition of this economy that we are in right now, everything we do gets a signature from the property owner before we start work. This applies to service calls too. We start by recording all incoming calls on our telephone. Then, when we walk into the customer's house, they have to sign our service call agreement before we check anything out. Our service call agreement states they have to pay our rate of $145.00 just to diagnose their problem and give a flat rate price to correct it. If, after diagnosis, they decide not to have us repair the problem, they still owe us the $145.00 service/diagnosis fee. I don't want to sound insensitive here but any one that commences any work without some type of signed agreement is asking for trouble.


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## plumberkc (Jun 23, 2011)

I don't know how you make this mistake. On large jobs, discussing the payment breakdown should be one of the first things you talk about. If they have any problems with it, don't invest any more of your time with them.


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## SewerRat (Feb 26, 2011)

I guess I don't see what's so hard about slapping a lien on the property. And reporting him to your Health Department. And the EPA. AND telling him that you don't need the practice and don't have time for his BS so he can get some hack to do it.


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## Don The Plumber (Feb 14, 2010)

I don't deal with septic tanks at all, but if advanced has all the proper permits secured, I'd say he holds the upper hand right? I mean no one else can, or would want to do the job then, I would think.

P.S. Are people around there too lazy to pick up the trash on driveway. If I was going to estimate a job, & seen that trash sitting all over, I'd keep going right on by.


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## easttexasplumb (Oct 13, 2010)

ILPlumber said:


> That cost 2 grand. Wow.....
> 
> Nobody cares that this was sent from my droid using. Plumbing Zone


You could rent that dozer for a week for less than that.


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## Advanced plum (Aug 10, 2012)

easttexasplumb said:


> You could rent that dozer for a week for less than that.


Ya maybe but not my time. And these picture was just the start of the job this went all the way to the bottom of that slop. I also stated that this house was used to house around twenty mexicans that he uses to catch chickens there is twenty guys living there and he is tell the health inspectoer that there is only 3 men there at any time and we all know that is a lie this house is really a 6 bedroom and he calls it 3 to lower the cost on the system the soil test came back with a 0.3 load rate and with adding the # of bedrooms it comes out to 450ft of field with 6 bedrooms it dam near doubles which in turn means alternative and that is big bucks . But anyway the machine my mens time out there racking that crap around and my time i wouldnt think that 2000 is very bad at all what are you paying your men minimum wage around here you can find someone to operate a shovel for less than 15 a hr so my answer is no its not high. This place is a crap hole of a place to have to work then haveing to deal with this money problem to and as far as setting a price before starting him and i talked about this before i ever started and i had to send him a parcel bill for the job once i started then thats when all hell broke loose so as of right this min all work has stopped and it rained on that hill last night about two inches so the longer he waits the more its going to cost him to fix this


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## saysflushable (Jun 15, 2009)

Advanced plum said:


> Ya maybe but not my time. And these picture was just the start of the job this went all the way to the bottom of that slop. I also stated that this house was used to house around twenty mexicans that he uses to catch chickens there is twenty guys living there and he is tell the health inspectoer that there is only 3 men there at any time and we all know that is a lie this house is really a 6 bedroom and he calls it 3 to lower the cost on the system the soil test came back with a 0.3 load rate and with adding the # of bedrooms it comes out to 450ft of field with 6 bedrooms it dam near doubles which in turn means alternative and that is big bucks . But anyway the machine my mens time out there racking that crap around and my time i wouldnt think that 2000 is very bad at all what are you paying your men minimum wage around here you can find someone to operate a shovel for less than 15 a hr so my answer is no its not high. This place is a crap hole of a place to have to work then haveing to deal with this money problem to and as far as setting a price before starting him and i talked about this before i ever started and i had to send him a parcel bill for the job once i started then thats when all hell broke loose so as of right this min all work has stopped and it rained on that hill last night about two inches so the longer he waits the more its going to cost him to fix this


looks to me like this guy likes to operate on the otherside of the law anyway. Plus he is wise enough to lawyer up to get things to go his way. at first I thought he was just protecting himself from a contractor. Nothing wrong with that. 

Now I say he is trying to protect himself from payment. 

I could be wrong, But how hard would it be for him to poison the ground so grass can't grow for a couple years or longer


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## johnlewismcleod (Apr 6, 2012)

Please tell me this guys last name doesn't start with a "P" and end with an "L" 

If it does, then you need to eat your losses and get out of there.

If he gets you to undersize the system for him, then he's got you by the short-hairs once you're done. Better find out _who_ is ultimately responsible for sizing the system before going forward :yes:


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## patrick88 (Oct 14, 2008)

It sounds sketchy. My thoughts are the same. This has future head aches all over it. Get all money owed now n run. This Guy has done his home work. He knew long before you showed up what this would turn into. Why else add something like growing grass. I would get all inspectors involved and point out to 20 guys living there and push for the biggest system needed. This Guy seems like he would quickly point fingers the second anything happens. Even on other properties.


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## ditchdigger (Aug 12, 2012)

Chalk it up and move on he isn't going to pay for a system big enough for 20 people. If you install a standard system setup for the number of bedrooms in the house you will be called a lot with backups and waterlog. That 2000$ isn't worth what lies ahead


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## rjbphd (Feb 5, 2010)

This reminded me a job that my late father did years ago.. the septic system needed extra seepage beds due to growing family.. after job was done..no payment... 'customer' said the field was still coming out of the ground where its a almost perfect soil of black dirt,etc. My dad wanted to send the service plumber to check all the indoor plumbing for leaks, they wouldn't let him in,instead suing the company for "faulty installation". Since on well system, can't prove the high useage of water into system.. took it to court as this judge had no clue how or what a septic system is and sided with the "customer" of not paying and forced to put more field... funny thing is the ground was dry when company had to ' redo' the field.. but still won't let us inside to check for leaks..


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## advanced (Feb 18, 2012)

All of you guys are right I have put in well over 200 of this systems in my short time in business and I dont remember ever haveing trouble like this this guy doesn't have to let the health inspector inside the house so the sanitaryan has to go off of his word about the bedrooms in the house I know for sure how many there is and I have told the inspector how many there is as well so he has to go with what he said even tho it's a lie I also told the inspector I wanted him there to over see the whole job just to be a little safer on my part if it's done by the book that's all I have to do


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## patrick88 (Oct 14, 2008)

I have a question.
What happens when the septic system gets backed up from excessive use. Clearly it will be undersized. I know basic septic mechanics. Enough to know if its sized wrong it will have problems. Is this all going to fall back on the installer or the inspector. Does this contract say properly sized per inspector or installer. If installer he knows this will be under sized cause he knows there are more than 3 bed rooms. I know I'm paranoid. Just thinking about the installer.


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## ditchdigger (Aug 12, 2012)

I have a ms individual waste water disposal licenses so the rules I'm sure differ but here regardless of the recommendation by the HD it is still your system and here you must maintain it for a period of at least 2 years


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## Kelly Plumbing (Oct 12, 2012)

BTW -- How did this turn out for you?


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