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There are THREE SIDES to every story... From experience, I see there are three sides to every story... 1) He said 2) She said 3) The facts obtained when you do your own research. Last week, I received a call from a contractor complaining our other woodworking division wasn't communicating with them and... he wanted to speak to the owner. The owner doesn't normally take calls like this and he asked me to followup. I did and after some fact finding and found both parties guilty of miscommunication and dealing with the situation improperly and the contractor (in my opinion) was overreacting. Between the emails, phone calls and playing diplomat, It sucked an hour out of my day... |
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"document", with date and time and then do a follow up recap of agreement and terms- with the parties involved. Talking is great (sometimes), but;documents with date, time and names hold up in court. Dealing with any kind of Contractor, terms should be made clear from the start. I had a home enhancement business for a short while, did the documents and agreements, and the contractor supervisor made side agreements outside of the contract. I made it clear, he was liable for everything he agreed to outside of the original contract !!! Recently, I have investigated briefly some municipal works, where the terms of the agreement did not include the proper warranty provisions, the sad thing is the work proved to be substandard, and the only thing we have as a recourse is to fix the deficiencies as an in-house expense. The sad thing is a recent project, of which I photographed and alerted people to, and spoke with the civil engineer over the project, I think he did not go and demand the corrections, nor did they improve the concept of warranty, and it is certain within 2 yrs the same problems will crop up, and it again will become an in-house expense to address it. This is somewhat a problem with "low bid" proposals and agreements, what is omitted is often critical in being deficient to provide what is the standard of quality and durability. Often time people want the lowest price, and have no idea what they give up to get it. then the Contrator does not always tell the client the consequences of what they give up, and people and contractors have conflicts after the fact. One Items I stressed at one company, which infuriated the Architect. was the excessive "change orders", I confronted them, and the teams who made the initial approvals, for not doing the foot work to get the right information and the right design concepts in place before the work began. Many contracts go over budget, because people don't minimize the frequency and volume of "change orders". Depending on what the project is, these things become very important. Even in basic remodeling of a room, or remodling of a kitchen or bathroom, one has to 'think it through before the agreement is signed". But as with people, when the project is underway, they find they want upgrades and modification, because they did not choose the right materials, or layout or something, or they come up with additional things they want, and these things conflict with things already partially completed and in some cases things that are fully completed. Result: requiring a great deal of rework, which includes dismantling and re-design and re-constructions, all of which carries a "cost".
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