Contract wrapped up (finally)
Oct. 23rd, 2010 04:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snousleGot the news while on the road that our building contract was FINALLY resolved.
We had met with our general contractor a few weeks ago - a meeting that he had postponed for more than 10 months. In short: we negotiated a settlement, pending approval from a subcontractor. (Since the architect, general contractor, and contractor's business partner all said they would recommend acceptance, I was pretty sure it would stick but did not want to post about it for fear of jinxing it all.) Comparing what I considered a fair settlement with what they were asking, they yielded about 75% of the difference.
This is not entirely unreasonable. Most of the difference was due to disagreement over what I thought was plain language in the contract, but they refused to acknowledge our interpretation because they did not think it was "fair". (Whatever that means.) If it went to arbitration, I would have given them about a 25% chance of prevailing nonetheless - sometimes, especially in a small town, arbitrators have hidden agendas, or simply refuse to take the case seriously. When I produced a proposal that gave them 25% of the difference, they accepted immediately, which suggests to me that we were actually in agreement over their probability of winning, even if they would not admit as much.
They made some serious errors in executing the contract, and they most definitely paid for them. I don't think they made very much money on us, and may have taken a significant loss. Though we'll never know for sure, everyone always cries poor in these situations. In the meanwhile, I would characterize the project as costing us a little less than I had anticipated overall. Which is not a bad result at all!
And those of you who suggested I get a lawyer? I don't think that would have been a very good idea. I suppose it might have been good advice for someone unable to understand the law or put together a large spreadsheet. But for us, it would have been extremely counterproductive.
Hearing the news cheered me up considerably, it's great to have that decisively over with. But at the same time, it represents the completion of pretty much everything I have aspired to in life, which leads to the question, "what now?" Kind of a strange feeling. I'm happy to coast with that for a while, but not having something to get done is taking some getting used to.
We had met with our general contractor a few weeks ago - a meeting that he had postponed for more than 10 months. In short: we negotiated a settlement, pending approval from a subcontractor. (Since the architect, general contractor, and contractor's business partner all said they would recommend acceptance, I was pretty sure it would stick but did not want to post about it for fear of jinxing it all.) Comparing what I considered a fair settlement with what they were asking, they yielded about 75% of the difference.
This is not entirely unreasonable. Most of the difference was due to disagreement over what I thought was plain language in the contract, but they refused to acknowledge our interpretation because they did not think it was "fair". (Whatever that means.) If it went to arbitration, I would have given them about a 25% chance of prevailing nonetheless - sometimes, especially in a small town, arbitrators have hidden agendas, or simply refuse to take the case seriously. When I produced a proposal that gave them 25% of the difference, they accepted immediately, which suggests to me that we were actually in agreement over their probability of winning, even if they would not admit as much.
They made some serious errors in executing the contract, and they most definitely paid for them. I don't think they made very much money on us, and may have taken a significant loss. Though we'll never know for sure, everyone always cries poor in these situations. In the meanwhile, I would characterize the project as costing us a little less than I had anticipated overall. Which is not a bad result at all!
And those of you who suggested I get a lawyer? I don't think that would have been a very good idea. I suppose it might have been good advice for someone unable to understand the law or put together a large spreadsheet. But for us, it would have been extremely counterproductive.
Hearing the news cheered me up considerably, it's great to have that decisively over with. But at the same time, it represents the completion of pretty much everything I have aspired to in life, which leads to the question, "what now?" Kind of a strange feeling. I'm happy to coast with that for a while, but not having something to get done is taking some getting used to.
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Date: 2010-10-24 06:01 pm (UTC)What's next ... I'm sure with will think of something ...
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Date: 2010-10-26 05:10 am (UTC)