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Handyman Can threatening me with a lien before payment is due. Camas, Washington
When we contracted with Handyman Can they agreed with HUD and Escrow, my husband and I to add hurricane Straps to water heater, Remove Foliage from East Elevation and Remove metal roof on shop area including underlayment, replace underlayment and shingle with 30 year comp. shingles.
On or about 6/7/2011, they signed an estimate confirming that they would do the above listed work. We signed on the house the 24th of June. For the next week I called them and left messages for them to call me back so we could schedule the work. I NEVER received a reply back. At the beginning of week 2 of calling, a woman answered, I was able to get out "Hi, this is (name)" before she interrupted me and said "I am out of the office right now, I will call you back so soon as I get back to the office." I waited all day, no call back. It took another day or two of calling them before I was finally able to get a hold of someone and schedule the work to proceed. We scheduled the work to start July 11th and continue to the 12th.
I believe it was on July 8th or the 11th, that she called me back and informed me that at the beginning of July, they had lost their license and/or insurance to do roofing. They waited until right before they started work on our new home to inform me of this.
They came out on the 12th of July to complete the work they were able to do, the hurricane straps and then only removed the exposed remains of the foliage (because I had other contractors waiting on Handyman Can to remove the tree but could wait no longer, the other company removed the top, leaving a stump that was less than six inch tall). Handyman Can only removed the exposed stump, then covered the remaining in-ground stump with bark dust. Unsatisfactory to me. I was told they would remove COMPLETELY the tree including the root system since it is right next to the main foundation wall.
I informed them on the day He was here doing the work that because of the problems with trying to find another roofer on such short notice and then getting them approved through Escrow I would not be paying them per-contract until ALL the work was completed by ALL contractors involved and the FINAL check was received from the Bank. He agreed.
Today, October 1 (Saturday), the same young lady called me telling me that our account is now 60 days late. I informed them that the final work was not completed until mid August and I had not received the final check from Bank yet. She told me that Bank had contacted them last week, confirmed their information and that Bank of America told them they were sending out the check.
I then told her that should mean that our account is not 60 days behind and that they should understand that if the Bank is just now finishing up their paperwork and sending out the final check that it should not be considered late.
She told me no and that since is now 60 days behind that she would be forced to put a lien on our house.
I do not think that it is right that they can break contract by not only not doing the work that they contracted with us to do, nor did they try to remedy that by finding someone else to do it and to pay them when we were paid out of Escrow.
I could not find a contractor that could or would do all the repairs to the roof that Handyman Can said they were going to do for the price Handyman Can said they would do it for. We could not pay higher due to the limit of money set aside in Escrow and the repairs had to come from that account.
It took so long trying to find a contractor and try to work out the problems with Escrow that ALL stemmed form Handyman Can breaking their contract, that the roof leaked even farther and the insulation became wet and molded. It was then condemned and eventually had to be torn down completely in the middle of August.
Because Handyman Can broke contract, we lost our Recreation room and then had to have it all disposed of properly.
Now they are threatening to put a lien on our house.