You’re Fired!
This sounds brutal doesn’t it? The chances of you needing to fire a contractor, vendor or service provider is likely. Don’t be afraid to let someone go. This is business. Fire them, release them or tell them it’s not working out. Settle your debt with them and move on. This is why it’s so important to have a contract. If at 25% complete its not working out and you cant come to an agreement, pay for the services rendered and move on. Cutting your losses now can be a good thing. Here are some examples of changes we have made along the way.
Concrete contractor- Backyard paver patio. Conract value $16500k. $3500 deposit paid, 4 months out to start. We’ve worked with this contractor many times before. The week before they were going to start we did a pre job walk to nail down some final adjustments and they asked me in person for $7000 more to start next week. We had already given them a 21% deposit. This would have been 63% of contract before any work was done including demo. Their reason was the same old thing. Need money for hauling etc, money to buy payers and base material. I expressed my problem with this and they would not budge. I offered to buy all the pavers and base material so i owned it and they said this was fine but they wouldn’t give me their discount so my cost would have gone up. We requested a refund of our deposit and the obliged. This ws the last time we did business with them. found someone else that worked with the standard terms of a contract and completed the scope. In fact this contractor we used didn’t accept any monies except a $500 deposit until complete. Win!
Backyard remodeler- Red flags from the start! Failed to show up for the first meeting and gave a non-sense excuse. Second time showed up 1.5 hours late. When asked on the phone why they were going to be late they said traffic accident from a town about 20 miles away. I looked on the ole google maps and traffic maps and there were zero accidents reported, so they were lying. I called him out on this when he arrived and he said he was really just stuck at another appointment. We did the walk. It didn’t go well. I knew they were not going to be hired but i gave them the chance to win the job and overlook the initial issues. The bid came back at $36000. Most ridiculous thing ever for the scope of work. We chose not to hire and thanked them for their time.
Home Depot- This is one of the industries best kept secrets. Here I go again giving secrets away. This is the best and i’ll tell you why. Especially if you’re out of town fixing one of your places. Contractors love being a HD provider. Its good consistent work and HD does all of the lean generating. So this means they have to be professional, courteous and competetive. Ive used them time and time again. First time was dual pane windows. They sent out four contractors. We interviewed them and chose the best fit for us. They were terrific! Not one issue. Second and third time was carpet install. I had tried to find people myself and forgot about HD. I called them up. They sent out 3 providers. We chose the best one and viola! New carpet at an amazing price each time. HomeAdvisor.com can be a great resource also but they are not held to any standard. You’re on your own with the vendors they generate for you.
Landscaper Friend- Try not to do business with friends if you can. Delays Delays Delays. So many promises to start. Finally I told him he need to be at my house Friday morning of a four day weekend or I was calling someone else. He said no problem they would be there. Well, guess what? No call, no show. My wife and I installed the grass and irrigation ourselves, saved thousands and when we were finishing up he called again to say they would be by the next weekend and I told him he was fired basically.
Carpet installer- Lots of great talk and coordination but the day came to install carpet and they tried to up my contract value claiming all sorts of different things. I canceled my contract, got my deposit back and called Home Depot.
Front Gate Installer- Two times they flaked on our appointment. Then they called and told me I needed to send them more details and proceeded to try to talk me out of my design. Claiming extra maintenence on my part would be needed which was completely false. Fired on the spot.
We’ve fired several property managers, maintenance folks etc. Remember this is a business. There are plenty of exceptional professionals out there. Never force someone to take your money. Just move on. If you get the gut feeling that it’s not a good fit or something is off, follow your intuition. It’s probably right!