My wife and I hired a contractor for a kitchen remodel in November 2022. The contractor is a friend of a friend and everything has been going fine. Literally, the best contractor I've ever dealt with. He owned his own company and has a crew of guys. A larger company essentially "bought" his company and he moved to working as his own little unit under the larger company. The contractors team only worked on remodels. The larger company deals with property management/maintaining rental homes.
Approximately two weeks ago the guys are on the job at my residence and they said they got a call and they have to leave. About an hour later the contractor we hired told me that the larger company let go ~20 or so construction teams like his.
We wait ~1 week to hear back from the larger company to determine WTF is going on. That one week goes by and nothing. I called the contractor we hired and basically told him that we still want you to finish the job since he was doing a stellar job. So he says that he will contact the larger company to see if he can somehow have the project transferred to him as all his licenses are still valid and current. Another week goes by and the contractor we hired is giving us updates and no one from the larger company has even called as of yet.
We finally get a hold of someone at the larger company and they tell us that they are phasing out of the remodel portion of the business. We ask them what is going to happen to our project and they tell us that they didn't have a contingency plan and we can transfer the project to the contractor that was working it or end the contract with them and find another contractor.
The contractor we were using basically has said the guys he had on his team had to all find other jobs and he would need to see what he could do. After hearing this we started to call around to other companies to see if anyone would finish the job. Out of the four contractors I talked to, three of them were 5+ months out and one didn't want to take on someone else work.
At this point we have no kitchen, we've been basically eating out this whole time/microwave. There is no damn way we are going to go another 5 months without a kitchen.
My wife and I were going to ask for a full refund of what we have paid so far (~30K) and ask they pay for our lodging as we cannot live in this house without a kitchen for another five + months due to their incompetence.
Has anyone ever been in this situation before? What would you do? Yes, I've called two lawyers today and am waiting to hear back from them. We do have a contract and I assume this would be a breach of contract.
Approximately two weeks ago the guys are on the job at my residence and they said they got a call and they have to leave. About an hour later the contractor we hired told me that the larger company let go ~20 or so construction teams like his.
We wait ~1 week to hear back from the larger company to determine WTF is going on. That one week goes by and nothing. I called the contractor we hired and basically told him that we still want you to finish the job since he was doing a stellar job. So he says that he will contact the larger company to see if he can somehow have the project transferred to him as all his licenses are still valid and current. Another week goes by and the contractor we hired is giving us updates and no one from the larger company has even called as of yet.
We finally get a hold of someone at the larger company and they tell us that they are phasing out of the remodel portion of the business. We ask them what is going to happen to our project and they tell us that they didn't have a contingency plan and we can transfer the project to the contractor that was working it or end the contract with them and find another contractor.
The contractor we were using basically has said the guys he had on his team had to all find other jobs and he would need to see what he could do. After hearing this we started to call around to other companies to see if anyone would finish the job. Out of the four contractors I talked to, three of them were 5+ months out and one didn't want to take on someone else work.
At this point we have no kitchen, we've been basically eating out this whole time/microwave. There is no damn way we are going to go another 5 months without a kitchen.
My wife and I were going to ask for a full refund of what we have paid so far (~30K) and ask they pay for our lodging as we cannot live in this house without a kitchen for another five + months due to their incompetence.
Has anyone ever been in this situation before? What would you do? Yes, I've called two lawyers today and am waiting to hear back from them. We do have a contract and I assume this would be a breach of contract.