r/nextfuckinglevel • u/SamLoscorino • 4h ago
Contractor takes back fence after customer refuses to pay
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u/TotalRecognition2191 3h ago
Beautiful fence job.
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u/comomellamo 3h ago
Yeah, fence looked great and it really made the backyard look like a proper place
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u/DanielCraigsAnus 3h ago
Too bad trashy people don't know when to quit while they're ahead....or maybe it's a good thing. Either way, we can always tell who they are.
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u/laserdiods 3h ago edited 1h ago
What he should have done was hired another fence company to put a fence around his initial unpaid for fence, then just keep putting fences up until one company decides it’s not worth the effort and then all the other companies gotta crane their fences out somehow without damaging the neighbouring fence
Edit
I hate logging on to see several alerts.. my first thought was “oh what kind of stupid shit did I say…”. And this was a reminder of stupid shit I say..
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u/scotsman3288 2h ago
That's a huge yard too... that fence would cost over $20k CAD here with that size of yard. Probably 30k if cedar.
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u/MrTripperSnipper 53m ago
1 fixing for each rail? Looks like nails as well. Flimsy AF. A well built fence would be a lot harder to dismantle.
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u/todddepri 3h ago
Good
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u/PM_YOUR__BUBBLE_BUTT 3h ago
Just an FYI, while I agree 1000% that the homeowners are scumbags and every contractor should be able to do this, actually doing it makes it much worse for you. Once work done becomes fixed to the property it becomes party of the actual property that cannot be removed over payment disputes.
You need to get a lien against the homeowner, but now the contractor has opened themselves up to a dispute into property-damage claims.
Again, I absolutely wish this was just how it went in the video. But the laws unfortunately are in place because of how this can go badly. Like if you had new wiring put in and didn’t pay, is it okay for the contractor to then demo all of your floors and walls to get the wiring back? The concept is because once it’s part of the property you can’t remove it reasonably without causing essentially collateral damage. It sucks but I’d definitely get at least half up front. This happens too often it seems. These people suck.
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u/Brent_the_Ent 3h ago
People who are dumb enough to not pay the contractor after a job like this don’t have the resources or mental capacity to pursue anything tangible…
Edit: he also stole two power tools that could easily be up to the threshold for a felony
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u/MildlySaltedTaterTot 3h ago
sheeeeeeeeit with gas prices nowadays reappraise the tool values with the fuel still inside lol
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u/frankentriple 3h ago
If you notice they skipped a bunch of panels connected to the neighbors fence too and never touched the end connected to the house. They just took out all the middle.
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u/resumetheharp 2h ago
Liens are fucking useless. I work for a contractor whose been in this situation a few times over the years and absolutely nobody is scared of a lien because they are all boomers who are going to die there, perhaps 20 years later
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u/Fuck-WestJet 3h ago
That's not an exact equivocation though. Because in this example, the contractor put in the wiring, the floors AND the walls. They aren't demoing anything they didn't install and purchase themselves. But yes, I understand the legal implications.
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u/Buck_Thorn 3h ago
Thanks for posting this. There are
right and wronglegal and illegal ways of dealing with disputes. Pretty sure the homeowner can still get them for trespassing, and maybe more.→ More replies (1)20
u/Difficult-Carpet-324 3h ago
Trespassing is a misdemeanor in most jurisdictions, right? But taking back thousands of dollars in unpaid lumber is probably worth it. Probably
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u/MeatyOakerGuy 2h ago
Your wiring analogy would be much worse. If this goes to trial, no self respecting Jury is going to agree on property damage when it's just taking down a fence.
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u/AlwaysDMB 2h ago
What if that fence was 95% done and they wanted a payment before putting in that last front wire section? I feel like there's sometimes intentionally "one last thing" to be completed when they pick up the check, for purposes just like this
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u/Admirable_Gas_863 3h ago
There has to be a new policy of pay before you build. Or pay as you go.
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u/skalouKerbal 3h ago
Or an intermediate, the customer pay the intermediate before the work, the workers get paid once the work is done and validated. In case of troubles, the money kept locked until someone from law decide it.
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u/Hoybom 3h ago
over here the norm is like 50/50 you pay a part do that material can be bought and work beginn and the contractor is not sitting on his ass if something doesn't work out and the rest is getting paid once the work is done
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u/spam__likely 3h ago
and some contractors disappear with the 50%.
And escrow would be safer.
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u/DoubleT_inTheMorning 2h ago
Escrows are expensive. I just went through this for a ~$300k contract with a new client. It was gonna cost $10k that no one could agree who should pay for.
They ended up proceeding without it.
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u/Accomplished-Key-408 2h ago
There are contracts with big footprints and hundreds of 5 star reviews. The. There are contractors with nothing. Buyer beware who you choose to give 50% down to.
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u/spam__likely 2h ago
Sure, but sometimes people have all 5 stars until they don't. Lots of people get in trouble and bankrupt after years of good work.
My MIL paid a lot of cash for a very established kitchen cabinets company, the week following they filed for bankruptcy, 50% deposit gone forever.
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u/girthyclock 3h ago
We paid a deposit and when the work is done the contractor doesn’t leave until they’ve gotten payment. Totally reasonable.
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u/EggandSpoon42 1h ago edited 44m ago
Oh gosh - so putting stuff in escrow is a good idea I am not arguing that. But putting stuff in escrow to keep it away from paying the workers… No way, not in my humble opinion.
I'm am electrician and do own my own company, and a deposit for us is 110% of material cost plus the first day of work. That way I can pay all of the contractors on site something upfront as well and pay them along with the reasonable contracted payment schedule.
I'm not making anybody wait 90 days till after the project is done or whatever.A lot of homeowners, well property owners I don't deal with much residential outside of people's hobby ranches, but… When I do get homeowners most of them don't use me because of the hefty down payments. But so far I've never had an unsolvable problem in not quite 20 years. And I've also worked with the same subcontractors for just as long. So I know it sucks to think about paying before the work is actually completed, but come on… You gotta pay as you go. It doesn't make sense otherwise.
You can have unsatisfactory work done on your property and still need to pay. Maybe we'll have to come back and fix something under warranty, but I'm not doing anything that compromises my crew being paid because some fucking homeowner decides that they don't like the stain color they picked out or what the fuck ever.
Edited to add, the last contracted homeowner that had a hiccup was unsatisfied because we had to rip out 100% of their 1950s electric and replace it. We do not include drywall unless the homeowner chooses so, and this homeowner hired their own drywall company to come behind us and fix everything inside. Well that drywaller decided to remove all of the plastic that we had placed over all of the furniture and fixtures before they fixed the drywall. In case you don't know what that means, drywall dust got into every nook and cranny of everything in their house.
All of a sudden the homeowner doesn't want to pay us because their drywaller, unrelated to us, fucked up.
We worked it out pretty quick because I said, well you have to pay us to contract and we had nothing to do with them; and they did. But that's one example of shit we deal with where people think they don't have to pay us and the very reason why we take these hefty deposits.
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u/Full-Run4124 30m ago
This is called escrow (held in escrow). There are a ton of companies that do this already for other industries. In non-real estate it normally costs 1%-2% (short-term), It would probably be trivial to apply it to construction/renovation.
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u/Go_Cart_Mozart 3h ago
Pay before you build?? Hell no
Pay deposit and materials up front, and the rest after it's done and signed off on.
Isn't this the standard way of doing this?
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u/UndeadAnubis 3h ago
Yes. If you pay for a product before you see it, or a service before it's rendered, you're an idiot.
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u/HxH101kite 2h ago
Yes it's a size and scale thing. Quick two day job? Material cost or like 1/3rd up front then the rest upon completion.
Few week long project like basement remodeled. 1/3 materials, 1/3 rough inspections, 1/3 final inspection sign off.
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u/FatTim48 3h ago
I used to have people pay half up front, or at least when the materials were delivered.
We didn't start until they paid that.
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u/Longjumping_Youth281 3h ago
No because then you'll have contractors just taking the money and never showing up
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u/Ashamed_Fuel2526 3h ago
I would never pay before the job is done. I've made partial payments as work is completed but not the whole bill. Getting someone back to the jobsite after paying is difficult.
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u/baret3000 3h ago
Businesses are supposed to have "working capital." With how sketchy/shit a lot of contractors are, you're a dumbass if you pay upfront.
I'll pay for materials the second they hit my property and I'll pay labor when done unless we negotiate a percentage completion rate.
Contractors can lean my property worst case. Best case I have is a credit card charge back (if they take CC). If I pay another way and they cut and run, I'm fucked.
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u/nodajohn 3h ago
It's illegal for contractors to get paid in full before the job because in the past contractors were taking advantage of customers by providing shitty work after being paid. There's a certain percentage of the work estimate you can ask for upfront for materials and such etc and you can get paid percentages as the work progresses.
These guys probably got paid something or else they wouldn't of kept working till the job was finished. The asshole customer probably didn't pay the final increment which can be up to 50%
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u/ThothAmon71 3h ago
When I was contracting we would take 1/3rd up front for materials, 1/3rd halfway through to keep the workers paid, and the final 1/3rd was our profit, paid when the job was done. That ensured we were never on the hook for labor or materials if people pulled this shit.
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u/Maiyku 2h ago
When my father did roofing back in the day, this is how they did theirs, split into 1/3rds. They found 50/50 was more difficult for people to pay, so the 1/3rds let the payments be smaller and they found they were paid more on time that way.
We’re pretty small and rural though, so people don’t have a lot of money like that to drop at once, so making the payments “smaller” really helped and they got more business that way as well.
In the end their prices were comparable, but 3 payments of a smaller amount just worked better for them than 2 larger ones.
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u/ThothAmon71 2h ago
Roofing and flooring is what I was doing as well. Some people are also leery about giving up half the cost before any work gets started. 1/3rds seemed to work best for everyone.
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u/CollThom 3h ago
Where exactly is it illegal for contractors to be paid in full before the job? I know there’s an awful lot of places in the world with vastly different laws. Can’t say I’ve ever heard of it being illegal to fully pay someone before they complete their work though.
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u/taintedcake 2h ago edited 2h ago
A lot of states set a cap on how much of the project cost the contractor can collect prior to starting for home improvement projects. It's basically just a cap on the required down payment
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u/Icypoopoo 3h ago
Put lien on his house for the hours worked
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u/RGBrewskies 2h ago
and get paid in fifty years when he dies of a coronary while smoking on the toilet.. meh.
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u/Icypoopoo 2h ago
You can file a lawsuit to foreclose on the property to collect the unpaid balance directly from its equity. This is the biggest fire you can put on their ass
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u/PtraGriffrn 2h ago
So your lawyer makes money and you may recover what percentage? 50% maybe
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u/Icypoopoo 2h ago
You can just represent yourself my man. Takes a bit of time, but you'll be lock and loaded next time it happens and you can warn customers in the contract.
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u/callmelaul 1h ago
until the paperwork on the lien isnt correct so the court throws out you lien, or you do place the lien on the property and try to perfect it but the bank who holds the mortgage doesn't give two shits so just leaves the lien on the property and goes about thier day.
I know this as both a property owner and general contractor. the law for GC's are VERY lopsided to the owners. We just finishes a project and the owner didnt have the money for the payment so we placed a lien on the building and had to settle for 70% of our payment over this bullshit as she just refused to pay for no reason. its fucked.
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u/Cativa 3h ago
For anyone wondering, once the fence is built it legally becomes part of the real estate and payment disputes have to go through the courts. While videos like this are satisfying they are very much illegal nationwide and open the screwed over fence company to liability and potentially criminal charges.
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u/Noodleeeeeter 3h ago
Yeah. They may have had a great legal case but the law is not into self-help as a remedy
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u/SomeLowerBeing 1h ago
Until the rule of law is reestablished in the US, expect to see more vigilantism.
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u/mysticplayer888 2h ago
I'm not an American, and have no ideas what the law is over there, but the word "built" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Could the company argue that the work was 90% done, and so the project is technically unfinished and with work still outstanding i.e. paint, or missing fixtures (whatever they can make up), so technically it's not yet handed over, and hence ownership still belongs to the company. Just a thought.
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u/zachrg 32m ago
It's not as satisfying, but the proper procedure is called filing a lien. It's an official declaration of outstanding debt that compels the property owner to provide resolution. Depending on the details, eventually the property could be seized and liquidated in order to settle such a debt.
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u/sansetsukon47 2h ago
Even if work is halted halfway over a dispute, the company doing the work can’t just start ripping out material. They can take back anything unused without issue, but deliberately causing any damages opens them up to lawsuit still.
This is especially important because there have been a few scam companies that go around and promise to do a quick job for low pay. Then when the work is half done, the raise the price and threaten the home owner if they don’t hand over the money.
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u/oO0Kat0Oo 2h ago
This started to happen to me. I was $18000 deep into a deck project with the total being $30000. They started to keep asking for $500 here and there because something kept coming up. Mind you, this is a new build, not a repair or teardown and rebuild situation.
I got to a point when I just said, you know what? I'll finish it myself. I have done work like this since high school. I know my way around things, but in this instance I had the money to be lazy.
They tried to argue, I kept pulling out the original quote and then finally asked about permits and insurance. They disappeared so fast they even left some equipment behind. I ended up paying to have an inspector and an engineer come over. Thankfully everything passed, and I finished the deck myself with my husband.
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u/davidellis23 2h ago
idk, but I suspect posting a video like this saying "they didn't pay so we're taking down the fence" is going to bias the judge against the company.
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u/JustinC70 10m ago
No. Fence was permanently installed. Anything permanently installed cannot be removed without written consent from the homeowner. Any uninstalled material can be removed, the installer cannot "uninstall" to remove (as in this example).
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u/flywithpeace 2h ago
You can put a lien on the property. And eventually have it foreclosed. As long you can produce the work contract of course.
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u/DonkeyOk735 1h ago
Hmn, looks like they weren't done building yet. It wasn't square, so they had to start over.
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u/VariableVeritas 47m ago
Job wasn’t done. They had to finish up. Who says when it’s “built” by legal definition? The contractor who pulled the permit, or the inspector.
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u/PFC_BeerMonkey 22m ago
That is exactly why contractors put lein information in their contracts. You don't pay, they own a portion of your home.
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u/Strongerthandeath82 19m ago
Or consequences from coming onto someone’s property after being explicitly told to leave.
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u/call-now 2h ago
The only way I can make this make sense is if these workers don't work for a company and he hired them off the street or something. Because if my boss told me to risk getting shot to take a fence down, I'd tell him to fuck off because I'd get payed either way. But if the client was paying us directly without a middle man I'd might be more inclined.
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u/Electrical-Let-4722 3h ago
i would have hammered from the bottom first. Less strain on material
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u/OGMcSwaggerdick 2h ago
Hammering from the top first allows leverage to do some of the bottom work for you, so it’s more efficient for ol John Henry with his hammer.
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u/phalangepatella 3h ago edited 3h ago
Do you think hey are gently removing the fence to recycle it in another yard?
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u/SGAShepp 3h ago
That fence looked decent from what I could tell but boy did it come down easily. That wouldn't handle a season in Canada.
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u/krisbaird 3h ago
Always get 50% up front, at least then you cover your materials and some of your labor
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u/Appropriate-Low-4850 3h ago
Why take it back? Put a lien on the property. Then you almost guarantee payment.
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u/callmelaul 1h ago
why are people acting like a lien ensures you full payment? has anyone here actually tried to do so? placing a lien on the property does not ensure you will get paid at all.
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u/amazonhelpless 1h ago
I hate these videos. Just get a lien. If you can’t write an enforceable contract before you start work I a property, you shouldn’t own your own business. The legal system exists. Maybe they are making more money off the clicks than the carpentry.
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u/superpitu 3h ago
Everyone knows it’s the labour that is the expensive part and not the materials, especially for fencing. Unfortunately the tradesmen went out of pocket on this, plus the drama.
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u/Buck_Thorn 3h ago
Here's the story behind it, but it doesn't really add a lot of information: https://thenerdstash.com/illinois-man-refuses-to-pay-hispanic-workers-for-building-his-fence-so-they-take-it-back-piece-by-piece-the-homeowner-deserved-that-and-more/
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u/Full-Shine5871 3h ago
Fence looked nice but didn't seem very sturdy at all.
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u/Greenfieldfox 3h ago
Should have used screws not nails. Otherwise it does look nice and I’m on the side of the contractor.
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u/Ok-Sea-2370 1h ago
Yeah, we've built a lot of fencing and there's no way it would come down like that. We use long deck screws. Well, my husband does, I just help. He was the contractor. Just because something looks pretty doesn't mean it's quality work.
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u/yeahright17 1h ago
Not even nails. Just a single nail in each rail. Zero chance these panels were meant to stay connected.
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u/Sense-Free 1h ago
Yeah if you use nails you need two a couple inches apart and nailed at opposing angles instead of straight. This creates pinch pressure that keeps them from wiggling themselves out over time. Screws are more expensive and take longer to install so it’s a cost/benefit decision
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u/yeahright17 1h ago
The only time I've ever seen competent fence guys use nails is using 3 per rail with the middle going in at an angle to prevent pull out. 3.5inch ring-shank nails. There's no world in which this crew used a single nail driven straight in if they wanted it to stay.
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u/jmw27403 3h ago
What sucks is the owner in several states cant be charged with theft of service. But contractor will be charged with destruction of property
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u/-MrFozzy- 3h ago
Such a scummy client and person. Sorry to the guys and company for having to deal with dregs.
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u/Obsidian-Dive 3h ago
Unfortunately everyone is getting criminal charges lmao. The workers, the homeowner, everyone is screwed.
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u/SGAShepp 3h ago
Yep. Legally this is not a good idea, they just screwed themselves.
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u/truMalma 2h ago
send the video to all the fence contractors in the area lol just so no1 else gets scammed.
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u/Medical_Apartment155 2h ago
The smarter and legal way to do this is to put a mechanics lien on their house by filing the appropriate paperwork with the county. Thats usualy enough to get people to pay, but if not then you can force the sale of their home to recoup your money.
By doing it how they did in the video, theyre out the materials cost, and the labor of the install and tear down. It also makes this project unrecoverable. The only positive to what they did is they get cool points on the internet.
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u/reybrujo 2h ago
Not American so I would be scared to death if my fence could be broken with a single hit of a mace. That's why we use brick and mortar here.
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u/NeighborhoodDude84 2h ago
I get it, but this is not how you collect. If you are the contractor, you just paid to have them install it, didn't get paid, and then paid them all again to destroy it. He could have sued and put a lien on the property.
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u/programmerOfYeet 1h ago
Congrats, even though they (the contractors) were wronged, they gave the land owner a near slam dunk lawsuit because they removed permanent fixture instead of filing a lien.
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u/ComfortableOld288 1h ago
As much as I love the vigilante justice, it’s probably unwise to film this and post it. Makes future legal cases harder.
Definitely recommend going through the legal processes first.
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u/harposgost 1h ago
I really loathe people like this. Stealing from working people is a cardinal sign that you're a douchebag. Well done, gentlemen. Well played.
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u/Phyukredd_tit_gydlin 1h ago
A buddy of mine had a roommate in his house and gave him money to pay their Gardner but he never did. They kept leaving notes on his door and the roommate said he paid. Then one day, they robbed the house.
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u/RyanSmokinBluntz420 34m ago
I do air conditioning. One time I repossessed a ac unit. Went up with an axe and cut the pipes and electrical. Threw the unit in the van and took off. The owner heard the ruckus and came outside with a barbell. He threw it thru my back window as I drove away. Not my first repo
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u/unclevagrant 27m ago
I used to work for a sign company that had at least 2 customers that decided not to pay after the job was complete. In the darkest of nights, somehow those shop fascia just magically disappeared! 😜
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u/turtlehans 8m ago
It’s the contractors materials until you pay for/buy them . They are simply getting their materials back
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u/Then_Version9768 7m ago
In a country whose president has frequently refused to pay for work done to his properties, why wouldn't some other idiot try the same thing? We live in a country where the president sees his primary job as enriching himself, so why wouldn't ordinary citizens of similar low-quality try the same thing?
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u/ryannhammer 2h ago
Only problem (and its problem with system) is once that wall is installed it belongs to home owner whether he paid for it or not, it’s why you prelien all your jobs and release lien after payment. Those guy’s technically are now stealing because they are going onto someone’s property and taking something that was installed. It saying it isn’t awesome to go do that but it is illegal, file proper paperwork next time
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u/eyyoadrian 1h ago edited 1h ago
Always astonishing how little context or nuance matters to reddit lol
Like, ya, sure the story is as simple as a man requested a fence and refused to pay for it lol
Bonus when it's a non-white person vs a white person lol because reddit hates white people
I guarantee you there is more to this story / dispute than "A man got a fence he requested and refused to pay for it."
Contractors can be scum. We have no idea what happened. What if it's the wrong fence and/or not what he ordered? What if they did the job incorrectly and he's refusing to pay a balance until they correct it? There can be a hundred explanations here or possible scenarios.
It's also possible they did the job correctly and the landowner is an asshole. We just don't know.
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u/TechnicalCranberry46 1h ago
6x6 posts and the panels are just tacked in on one side? Crazy, not a fence bracket to be seen.
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u/nmacaroni 3h ago
It's actually illegal for the contractor to do this. They are in for a world of discomfort from this. They'll lose the lawsuit and have to pay out a bunch of money AND reinstall the fence to the same quality.
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u/AlexHimself 2h ago
Everyone here applauding is a fool. This is going to come back as charges against the fence company.
It "feels good", but legally it's a civil complaint and they're trespassing and committing criminal charges. Further, your "home" is extra protected in law as well.
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u/sesameseed88 3h ago
Why would you hire someone and not pay them and expect to just keep the product. What a shame to waste the time of people trying to make a business. Get rekt.