Just go away!

We had not gotten our release of Lein by Thursday  June 30 and that old familiar feeling of something is up kept nagging at me.  About 7:30 am..ish Friday a flurry of text messages came through.  This was unacceptable, he wasnt paying for appliances ( even though he told us he would), no ceiling fans, no lights etc.  Send me a revised bill and I will see what you owe me, send you a bill and when you pay me...I will sign the lein.  O.K. asshole, you want to get down to the nitty gritty, we can do that.

So I sent him an email that said hed been paid X amount.

We had paid, cabinets, paint, trim and granite.  So that left him X amount but he had not reimbursed us for anything yet and that bill taking 25% off the top for difference in quality ( pretty generous I think), left him 13K in arrears.  Even if we went 10K over budget he was still 3k in arrears.  But we would call it even and if this was not good enough then our next communication would be through our lawyer.  Crickets since then but it's a holiday weekend and I'm hoping we get signed paperwork in the mail on Tuesday.  Then I can let out a sigh of relief.  

Apparently this happens all the time and rarely is the GC in the right.  All I know is that we entered into this in good faith and he has constantly let us down.  Very little communication and very little transparency.  I cant tell you how many times I requested a budget sheet to know what I could spend on what and then just gave up.  If we went over..so be it but I always shop with a budget in mind and also bought early, long before the price increases began.  Never was there a phone call, text or email that said prices were increasing quickly and price he quoted he could not sustain.  He can make all the excuses he wants but he wouldn't be in this position if hed done the house in the time frame he quoted us or at least in 12 months at the most but we are at a year and 6 months...very poor planning and a very sorry business model.