This is why "licensed and bonded" is important. Not only for them to claim that, but for you to go online and google theirs.
Otherwise, you're basically just capable of suing them, unless they are actively breaking the law, you could be shit out of luck for hiring them. But hopefully your insurance would cover it...
Bonded means they have put up money to cover this sort of event. (usually its insurance they've pre-paid afaik)
The bond is almost always a pretty comically low amount of money. The bond in CA is $25k. And that just got raised in 2023. And if you know anything about the cost of construction here 25k isn't fixing much.
That's the minimum required by law. If they're asking for more than that much money to do the work, you can reasonably ask them to increase the bond to cover it. You can also require them to have liability insurance.
I wouldn't hire a contractor on a 120k job if his bond is 25k unless he has some serious stake in the area with their reputation. Sometimes they can post a higher bond to win a contract that demands a higher bond.
Who you gonna sue? Doubt this crew even has an llc let alone a phone number listed anywhere. Suing only works if you can actually find the other party and show they actually caused the damages.
Did you speak directly with their bond’s surety company? The contractor’s desire to stay in business doesn’t matter if he had an active bond while working in your project. Surety company pays and collecting from the contractor is their problem.
It's been a number of years and my spouse did part of the work so it's hazy.
If I remember correctly, it was a good company that went bad. When they did the work for us is when they were on their downhill slide.
We had problems with their work not being done to code and called and they were out of business. Someone had bought the contracts and employees, but the old company was bankrupted.
Contacted the state, etc., but all that was available to us was $600.
Like I said, it's been a number of years and I didn't handle all of it, but we brought in attorneys as well. We didn't pursue it in court though.
Yall act like people who do work like this also do paperwork and follow the law… This was done by Joe bobs cousins buddy from the trailer park who just needed a little help last month after his meth dealer beat his teeth out for not paying. Ain’t no paperwork, bonds, licenses, contractors, surety, nada involved here. It’s just illegal work all around.
We're talking about people that ARE licensed and bonded.
Even if they're lying, there's a thing called due diligence. If you're spending thousands of dollars, you can take five minutes online to verify the license, and can ask for documentation of the bond before paying, and before work starts.
This was done by Joe bobs cousins buddy from the trailer park who just needed a little help last month after his meth dealer beat his teeth out for not paying.
I have seen plenty of dodgy work done by fully licensed and reputable companies it just takes one shitty employee or a change in ownership etc. etc.
If they're legally bonded then the money was in escrow and any damage would have been already paid for at the regulator. Are you saying you never got your money back for damage they did?
I think you're not understanding all the facts and it's not worth delving into it here. As I said, we brought in the state, attorneys, etc. All that was available to us was $600.
Also, the money does not stay in escrow indefinitely. If you find the damage 6 months after the fact, and the company is already out of business, you're not getting shit (or in our case, $600).
5.2k
u/DMAS1638 5d ago edited 4d ago
We are a construction company that does property assessments, it's not the first time we have run into something like this.